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COPYRFGHT DEPOSH^ 



LOITERER'S HARVEST 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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LOITERER^S HARVEST 



BY 



:J^^LU 



E^Vr LUCAS 



AUTHOR OF "over BEMEHTOn's," " MR. INGLESIDE 
"a LITTLE OF EVERYTHING," ETC. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1913 

All rights reserved 






O^A 



Copyright, 1913, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1913. 



NorfajooU ^regg 

J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



©0I.A357143 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Seen from the Line . 

Disappearing London . 

Surprises . 

Thackeray at the Punch Table 

A London Symposium . 

Insulence .... 

A Good Poet 

Wordsworth Poitr Rire 

Old Crome's Hobbema 

Persons of Quality . 

The Jolly Good Fellows . 

Thoughts on Magic . 

Tom Girtin .... 

My Walks Abroad 

Unlikely Conversations . 

The Provincial Editor's Letter-Bag 

Tracts that took the Wrong Turning 

Wayside Notes 

The Fourpenny Box .... 
The Worst Prelude to Adventure . 



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LOITERER'S HARVEST 

Seen from the Line ^:^ ^> <::> <:> 

AN ingenious friend, many of whose ideas I 
have from time to time borrowed or frankly 
stolen, projected once a series of guide-books, to be 
subsidised by railway companies, which were to bear 
the same title as this essay, and to enlarge upon the 
towns, villages, cathedrals, mansions, parks, and 
other objects of interest, glimpses of which could be 
obtained from carriage windows. Like too many of 
his schemes, it has as yet come to nothing; but I 
have often thought of it when travelling, and par- 
ticularly when, as the train rushed through Redhill, 
I used to catch sight once or twice a week of the 
bleak white house among the trees on the slope 
immediately to the east of the station, because that 
house was built by a man of genius who has always 
attracted me, and who deliberately placed it there 
(and allowed no blinds in it) that he might have 
the pageant of the sunset over the weald of Surrey 
and Sussex before his eyes. 

But there was another reason, of far greater impor- 
tance and shiningly unique, for looking for this white 
B I 



Seen from the Line 

house among the hillside trees, and that is that it is a 
link between the very ordinary, matter-of-fact person 
whom I know as myself and the inspired mystic who 
wrote "Tiger, Tiger, burning bright" and "Jerusa- 
lem," and drew portraits of the prophets from his 
inner vision — none other than William Blake. 

That there should be any other bond between us 
than my admiration of his genius will probably come 
as a surprise to most of my friends. But it is so, 
as I will explain ; for the bleak white house on the 
hill is Redstone House, built by John Linnell the 
landscape painter in 1851 ; and among John Linnell's 
sons was William, the godson of William Blake, 
named William after him, who as a child was held 
in Blake's arms; and in 1880, when I was at school 
at Redhill, William Linnell was the drawing-master : 
a rather testy old gentleman with a very white 
beard, who was possessed of that curious sensitive 
antipathy to cats which informed him instantly if 
one was in hiding anywhere near. 

Although no one who has ever seen my pencil at 
work would credit the statement, I was in a manner 
of speaking "taught drawing" by this elderly 
professor. During the period of his instruction the 
privilege was not valued ; but now that he is dead 
and I am older, I look back upon it with pride and 
excitement, for the association, by bringing me so 
near the great visionary, gives me a caste almost 
apart. In however many ways I may approximate 
to the mass of mankind, I am aloofly superior to 
2 



John Varley 

them in this remarkable respect : I was taught 
to draw by one who had sat on the knee of the 
author and illustrator of the Songs of Innocence, 
Common persons have no idea how a thought such 
as this can invigorate and uplift. 

John Linnell I never saw. He was still living in 
1880 ; but he was enormously old, nearly ninety, 
and we heard terrifying things about him : of his 
patriarchal despotism in the house where this white- 
haired drawing-master who kept us so nervously 
busy with our india-rubber was treated still as a 
mere boy; of his alarming venerableness, resembling 
awe-inspiring figures in Blake's pictures ; of his 
uncompromising austerities of life. As to liow far 
these stories were true, I have no knowledge ; 
but that is wliat we heard, and it was enough to 
keep us on half-holidays from Redstone wood. 
Of course I am sorry now. Could the chance 
come again — which are quite as sad words as those 
which stand at the head of "Maud Miiller" — I 
should have many questions to ask him, chiefly of 
course of Blake, but also of that other curious 
character and even more intimate (because nearer 
earth) friend of Linnell, John Varley, the water- 
colour painter. For it was to Linnell that Varley, 
in the midst of a thicker crowd of misfortunes than 
ever — writs and imprisonment for debt and domestic 
embroilments — made the immortal remark which 
should have won him, under any decent dean, a 
niche of honour in Westminster Abbey with the words 

3 



Seen from the Line 

in imperishable gold — "But all these troubles are 
necessary to me. If it were not for my troubles 
I should burst with joy." It would be good to 
hear at first hand more of the man who could say 
that. 



Disappearing London ^;^ ^^^ ^cb- ^^ 

*' /"^ IVE me, ah! give me j^esterday!" This 
V_T bitter cry is on the lips of every lover of 
London, faintly heard amid the din made by the 
pickaxes of the demolishers and the cranes and 
trowels of the contractors. But the wish can never 
be granted; at the most we can bj^ hunting for it 
cherish for a moment an illusion, and here and 
there, in the few sanctuaries of antiquity and beauty 
that remain, cheat ourselves that time has run back 
and the serener past again is ours. That such 
opportunities must speedily becone fewer is of 
course in the very nature of things, decay being a 
law of life; while, as it happens, the rebuilder was 
never so urgent as now. The searcher for the 
vestiges of that sweeter and older London must 
therefore hasten — as I have just been doing — for it 
is astonishing how rapidly an old house can become 
a new one. 

Venerable and respected landmarks disappear in 
a moment, like water into sand. Mushrooms 
cannot grow more quickly than a really beautiful 

5 



Disappearing London 

but insufficiently utilitarian London building can 
vanish. Let me give two examples that approximate 
to truth more closely than most things in the daily 
Press. I remember how when I first came to 
London and lodged in Golden Square I used to 
rejoice in the sight of a Georgian mansion opposite. 
One day I chanced to leave town for an hour or two, 
and when I returned the Georgian residence was 
brand new business premises. Again, I used occa- 
sionally at another time to buy tools and hardware 
necessaries at a seventeenth-century shop called 
Melhuish's, in Fetter Lane, with yellow walls and 
overhanging gables. One day I found that a purchase 
would not do and returned with it to change it, and 
behold, the seventeenth-century shop had become 
a modern commercial structure ! Aladdin himself, 
with his lamp in hand, might yet take lessons in 
speed from London rebuilders ; while in the matter 
of thoroughness, no earthquake can compare with 
the Duke of Bedford, as anyone may see by wan- 
dering at the back of the British Museum in the 
expectation of finding the Bloomsbury of yester- 
year. 

When one meets a London enthusiast, and 
peculiarly so if he is from the country, or from 
America (where London is revered as by few of her 
natives), one finds that the old London that most 
attracts him is in three divisions — Shakespeare's 
London, Johnson's and Goldsmith's London, and 
Dickens's London. I refer, of course, to semi- or 
6 



Staple Inn 

wholly-domestic relics rather than to public build- 
ings : I mean, for example, that the pilgrim seeking 
Johnsonian London would prefer Bedford Row, say, 
which is unpreserved, to the house in Gough Square 
(although I thank the stars for that), which now is 
preserved, just as the lover of the country prefers 
an open heath to a park. In other words, one 
wants the old London that has survived by chance 
rather than the old London that has been cherished. 
One gets a truer thrill there. Not that I would 
disparage or appear to disparage the efforts of the 
preserver ; but for the moment I am speaking 
purely of the feelings of the amateur of antiquity. 

But it is not safe to postpone a visit, even to 
some of the cherished memorials. That wonderful 
row of timbered houses in Holborn, for example, 
which strike so strangely on the vision of the 
traveller who has entered London at St. Pancras or 
King's Cross, and is driving up the Gray's Inn Road 
— making him almost rub his eyes and wonder if 
he is not dreaming some such dream as fell to 
William Morris and is described in his memorable 
little John Ball apologue : that row is in pious 
hands, but it cannot last for ever. How should it ^ 
A day must come when it will no longer be con- 
sidered safe : the County Council will debate upon 
it, and down it will come, not of course to be utterly 
lost, because for a certainty part at least of the 
facade would be re-erected at South Kensington, 
where they have a fine old London timbered fagade 

7 



Disappearing London 

as it is ; but the Tudor part of Staple Inn — the 
identical houses that Shakespeare often saw, and 
perhaps visited — must, although so jealously watched 
and restored and strengthened, assuredly at some 
not too distant day perish. 

This means, of course, that still shorter life is to 
be predicted for another Shakespearean corner not 
far distant — Cloth Fair — since no wealthy insurance 
company is preserving that. Cloth Fair is the 
completest unprotected domestic relic of the Middle 
Ages that London possesses ; and it has the additional 
merit of being genuine and not a show place. Many 
travellers enter the ancient church of St. Bartholo- 
mew and gaze, on their way in, at the backs of the 
houses above the graves; but they do not inquire 
farther. They do not examine the fronts of those 
houses, which are Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 9 of Cloth Fair; 
they do not walk a few steps up this mediaeval street, 
which wants only its old signboards to make it exact 
again, and enter "Ye Old Dick Whittington" 
public-house — an inn which dates from the fifteenth 
century and has hardly been tampered with — where 
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, visiting Bartholomew 
Fair together (as they must have done), undoubtedly 
took a glass. Nowhere in London is such a network 
of tiny courts as you find here, and some of the 
houses are still of wood. Ecclesiastical and civic 
buildings, of great age are plentiful, but such 
domestic Tudor survivals are rare, and I hesitate to 
write of Cloth Fair at all, for fear that the rash 
8 



Old London's Enemies 

words may catch the eye of a municipal restoring 
and modernizing zealot. 

Had it not been for the sight of a portfolio of 
delicate London drawings by Mr. P. Noel Boxer, I 
might never have seen Cloth Fair again : just through 
that postponing tendency which, although so natural, 
must be one of the bitterest things that dying men 
reflect upon. But they were so exciting as to send 
me straightway on a little tour of refreshment, 
beginning at that point. Directly I saw them, I 
said to myself I must see again those strongholds of 
ancientry, those beautiful, brave anachronisms. I 
said that in the morning, and gave the rest of the 
day to it, such terror one has of London's renovators, 
whether corporate or individual. County Council or 
British working man ! Because one can't really 
trust anyone. Look, for example, at the gentleman 
in whose ingenious and altruistic brain originated 
the admirable (as I think) Daylight Saving Bill. 
One would expect in so thoughtful a philanthropist 
an especial reverence for such an abode of peace as 
Clifford's Inn, off Fleet Street. But you have only 
to go there — and you must be quick — to read on a 
notice-board that the Inn's purchaser is that same 
Mr. William Willett to whom the sun's rays are so 
dear, and it is he who is erecting on this sacred site 
commodious oflSces. So there you are ! 

That is why I lost no time in hurrying to Cloth 
Fair, and from there to Staple Inn, with its five 
delicate plane trees in brightest green (and, of 

9 



Disappearing London 

course, as you know, one of Staple Inn's peculiar 
glories is its forestry. In their haste people talk o^ 
Bushey Park as a place in which to revel in the 
beauty of trees : some even commend Burnham 
Beeches : w hereas the truth is that only in the law 
inns and confined oases of this dark city of London 
in the months of May and June is the ecstasy of 
foliage really to be apprehended). Before I came 
to Staple Inn I had peeped into that Georgian back 
water Bartlett's Buildings ; after I left Staple Inn 
crossed to Gray's Inn and drank in its great peace 
and then took in the noble Georgian prospect c 
Bedford Row. Then I made for poor Clifford's Ii 
— what is left of it — and then for the Temple, ai 
for what I think is its very jewel — Brick Cour 
where (at No. 2) Goldsmith lived and died, and aft( 
him lived Thackeray in the same rooms ; and ;• ^ 
down to the Temple Station, where I took train t i. 
Mark Lane, bent upon that part of Dickens 
London in which he discovered Rogue Riderhood. ^j 

At some stairs below the Tower Bridge I found 
waterman willing to pull me hither ana thither ft 
a few shillings. It was a warm afternoon in a won- 
derful May, and, except that I was in the midst of 
great beauty, I might, as I leaned back in as much 
comfort as was obtainable, have been on a Venetian 
canal. But I was not : the Thames warehouses are 
more than palazzi, and my waterman was interesting 
beyond any gondolier. He knew every inch of 
Wapping and Shadwell on the north bank, and 
10 



"The Prospect of Whitby" 

Rotherhithe on the south. He told me the names 
of all the Stairs and particulars concerning the 
landlords of all the inns. We passed between 
barges, avoided tugs, and rocked in the wash of 
steamers all the way to "The Prospect of Whitby" 
at Shadwell, which is an inn by the old entrance 
to the London Docks, between the Dock Master's 
little villa and Pelican Stairs. Why it is called 
"The Prospect of Whitby" was the only thing my 
waterman did not know about this inn, which has 
all the merits of its kind : an air of carelessness and 
ease not too far removed from decay ; a balcony 
commandmg the stream and all its strange ships 
and activity; and half a dozen indolent imbibers 
on view, to whom I appeared almost as a visitant 
from Mars. Add to this that half the house is wood, 
with an aversion from paint as deep as the habitues' 
aversion from water, and you have "The Prospect 
of Whitby" complete. But the thing to remember 
is that you won't have it long. The busybody is 
bound to discover it soon and talk pontifically of 
the danger of wooden structures in this vast and 
populous city (although I found some in Wellclose 
Square and some in the Borough High Street, where 
they are far more dangerous), and the death-blow 
will be sounded to this morsel of Whistlerian beauty, 
and the Thames will lose another Dickens relic. 

Leaving reluctantly "The Prospect of Whitby," 
we crossed to the Rotherhithe bank, and rowed 
casually back towards the Tower Bridge (the best 
II 



Disappearing London 

gift of modern architecture to London) ; past hay 
barges all ready to the bland brush of Cotman, and 
one loaded with grain and deserted by its crew, on 
which half the pigeons of London had settled for 
the banquet of the season ; past Rotherhithe Church, 
with little splashes of chestnut leaf in its churchyard 
shining between the warehouses ; past other river- 
side inns and that fine row of insanitary and cheer- 
fully broken-down buildings which ends with the 
"Angel," another tottering balconied hotel that 
commands the Pool of London and refreshes the 
Riderhoods of to-day. It was a brief voyage, for I 
still had certain other old London recollections to 
revive ; but every second of it was crowded with 
interest. 

And so I made my way to Tabard Street and the 
Borough, where the very crown was to be set on 
Dickens memories. For there the "George" was 
awaiting a visit. Now what "Ye Old Dick 
Whittington" in Cloth Fair does for the Shake- 
spearean devotee the "George" in the Borough 
does for the lover of Pickwick and its creator. 
Dickens, of course, was a modern : he has been 
dead not fifty years; yet what we mean by the 
words "Dickens's London" is strangely enough more 
extinct than, for example. Goldsmith's London, 
although so much older. Goldsmith having the 
fortune to be associated with the Temple, his 
London can never wholly pass. Nor will the 
London that Dickens himself lived in and knew — 

12 



The Galleried "George" 

the London of the Bloomsbury squares and the 
Clubs — wholly pass for many centuries. But when 
we say "Dickens's London," we mean, of course, 
hospitable courtyarded inns and such riverside 
huddles of wharf, warehouse, shed, and balcony as 
I have been describing. And there is only one 
relic of a courtyarded inn left — the "George" — and 
that has been mercilessly reduced ; although what 
remains is perfect. It is Dickens in essence. How 
any Dickensian visitor to London can possibly stay 
anywhere else is inconceivable, for here are the 
bedrooms opening on to balconies, exactly as on the 
day when Sam Weller was first discovered cleaning 
the boots of Mr. Alfred Jingle and Miss Rachel 
Wardle at the adjacent "White Hart"; here is the 
cosiest and brightest of bars, with a pair of pistols 
in it such as the guards of coaches carried, where 
you may still sip punch, a cordial beverage practically 
unknown in the rest of London and England, and 
very likely pineapple rum too. 

What kind of life is in store for the "George" I 
cannot say; but since the painters were giving the 
beautiful balcony a new coat, its demolition (to 
make room for railway delivery wagons) cannot be 
instant. Still, as I said before, you must make 
haste, you who love old London, for everything is 
against you — Time and the elements are against 
you, and man and what he quaintly calls civilization 
and progress are against you. 



13 



Surprises ^:^ ^v>y -;^ -^r^y -^^y ^:^y 

SANCHO PANZA, who was wise upon most 
things, and upon everything where wisdom is 
absolutely necessary, once remarked that it takes 
a long time to know anybody. A later sage has it 
that we know nothing about anybody at all. Both 
these pronouncements came to my mind the other 
morning when I discovered, after an acquaintance 
of some duration, that our veterinary surgeon had in 
his boyhood acted as one of the readers who were 
called in by that fastidious and exacting gentleman 
of genius, the late Edward FitzGerald, to regale him 
with Dickens's novels, an hour at a time, owing 
to the weakness of his eyes. But the veterinary 
surgeon, thus suddenly endowed with a glamour of 
which he had been only too innocent before, had 
nothing to tell. He was no Boswell. I asked a 
thousand questions; but he had no answers. He 
could not even remember what books he read ; he 
knew only this, that he did not like Mr. FitzGerald. 
But what I want to emphasize is the fact that if 
a million persons of intelligence (should there be so 
14 



Frank Smedley 

many) were each to be shown my friend and asked 
to name one of his casual employments as a boy, not 
one would say, "He read Dickens to Edward Fitz- 
Gerald." Not one. 

Since then I have been looking at fellow- 
passengers in the train, not with more curious 
interest than of old, but with a new eye. Instead 
of conjecturing as to their walk of life on the basis 
of likelihood, I have speculated on a basis of im- 
probability. "You look like a commercial traveller," 
I have said inwardly to a well-nourished vis-d-vis 
with several bulging bags and a big watch-chain ; 
"you are therefore probably a Post-impressionist 
artist." Or, "Having all the stigmata of a horse- 
dealer" — this to another with a smooth, ferrety face, 
a short Wanghee cane, and riding-breeches, "you 
probably helped Swinburne with the proofs of Both- 
well.'' For it is the unexpected that happens. 

It is an open question whether it is more amusing 
to be surprised by the appearance of a person much 
thought about and at last met or to find one's 
anticipations realized. Certainly in the experience 
of every one there have been some rude shocks. 
Edmund Yates, in his Reminiscences, supplies one 
classical instance, when he records his meeting 
with Frank Smedley. Frank Smedley is not read 
now ; but thirty and forty years ago he was the 
darling of schoolboys by reason of three novels which 
glorified strong men and daring spirits — Frank Fair- 
leiyh, Lewis Arundel, and Harry CoverdaWs Courtship. 

15 



Surprises 

In these epics of lawless young English gentlemen 
in the early Victorian days muscle is very nearly all. 
Well, Yates went to see him, expecting a Hercules, 
and found a wizened cripple in a Bath chair. 

The other classical example that comes to mind 
as I WTite is that of the detective who was sent over 
to France to arrest Wells, a defaulter become 
famous throughout the world as "the man who 
broke the bank at Monte Carlo." The arrest was 
made at a French watering-place, if I remember 
aright, the wanted man being pointed out to the 
detective by a foreign colleague. The detective's 
comment is historic. "What," he said, "that bleed- 
ing little tinker!" Poor Wells! and yet he had 
brought it on himself. It was, as the gentle Bully 
Smee remarks in Peter Pan, after all a bit of a com- 
pliment ; for had he not broken the bank no very 
distinct conception of his appearance would have been 
formed. It was the contrast between that news- 
paper glamour and the man's insufficient inches 
which provoked the exclamation. 

Conversely, I was not a little astonished, when I 
was introduced the other day to one of the quietest 
and demurest of modern essayists and philosophic 
teachers, to find myself in the presence of a giant 
who looked far more like a heavy dragoon than any 
manipulator of the pen. And again, sitting next 
a lady at dinner recently where another fairly well- 
known essayist was present, she asked me to point 
him out. "Immediately opposite you," I said, in- 
i6 



"To Magazine Editors" 

dicating a clean-shaven face. "Oh," she exclaimed, 
"how funny ! I always thought of him as having a 
pointed beard." 

If I were the editor of an illustrated paper or 
magazine I would now and then collect a number 
of my readers' ideas as to the physiognomy of 
illustrious but unphotographed contributors and 
then tabulate them, with a true photograph at the 
end. The result would be at least as amusing as 
the pictures we now see of celebrities at different 
stages in their careers. 

It is all to the good that insignificant-looking 
persons should do great things, but human nature 
will ever resent it. We are such determined 
idealists, we have such a passion for symmetry, that 
our first wish will always be that handsome does and 
handsome is shall be one. 



17 



Thackeray at the Punch Table ^^ ^:^ ^^ 

THE history of Thackeray's connexion with 
Punch is well known. He began to contribute 
in 1842, when he was thirty-one, the paper having 
been founded in 1841 ; he joined the staff at the end 
of 1843 and remained actively upon it for eight 
years, contributing, among other things, the Snoh 
papers, many of the ballads (including that famous 
w^arm-hearted one in praise of the Punch Table 
itself, "The Mahogany Tree"), and a variety of 
other matter, even to satirical art criticism. He 
left the inner staff, owing to differences into which 
there is no need to enter here, in 18ol, but 
continued to write occasionally until 1854. Yet 
although Thackeray ceased to write then, he did not 
sever his social connexion with the paper, frequently 
joining his old friends at the Table at the weekly 
dinner till within a few days of his premature death, 
and often either suggesting the cartoon or materially 
assisting it. 

In 1858 a new recruit came to the paper in tlie 
person of Henry Silver, then a young lawyer of 



Mark Lemon 

thirty, to take the place left vacant by the death of 
Douglas Jerrold m 1857, and Silver kept a record of 
each dinner that he attended and the best things 
said there for twelve years, until, in 1870, he retired. 

Silver died in 1910, leaving a seven -figure fortune, 
which the papers were so tactless as to describe as 
that of "a Punch contributor," but which, I need 
hardly say, did not represent his earnings as a comic 
journalist, and leaving also, to the proprietors of 
Punch, a large collection of original drawings by 
Leech, Tenniel, Keene, and others of the paper's 
artists, together with his Dinner Diary. It is 
this Diary which lies before me and yields the 
present crop of Thackeray ana, which, if not of the 
highest value, has an interest inseparable from any 
words spoken by that shrewd and benignant great 
man at his ease among colleagues whom he trusted. 

Before, however, we come to the Diary proper, it 
would be well to survey the staff in the year 1858, 
when Silver began to take notes. The editor was 
Mark Lemon, the corpulent and jovial, who had 
controlled it from the first number — July 17th, 1841 

— and who must always be considered its father. 
At any rate — be the "onlie begetter" who it may, 
and there is a certain mystery surrounding the birth 

— it was Mark Lemon's personality which, more 
than anyone's, determined the personality of Mr. 
Punch, and is still potent. In 1858 Mark was forty- 
nine, with twelve years of life before him, and this 
Diary reveals him in a very pleasant light as a 

19 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

simple, jocose, kindly, philanthropic, busy man of 
the world, and a very devoted husband and father. 
It is evident also that he had much tact. His 
contributions to the conversation are chiefly remin- 
iscences of the earlier days of Punch, of the Stage, 
and so forth ; but he says a few good and many 
sound and serious things, and occasionally brings 
stories of his children, as when he tells of one of his 
little girls replying to her sister who wished to keep 
her out of the drawing room, "Let me go in; I've 
as much parlour blood as you." 

Next to Lemon in authority and resourcefulness 
was his deputy. Shirley Brooks, whom the Diary 
shows us to have been a less simple soul than Mark 
— very ready with anecdotes, puns, witty criticisms, 
improvised burlesques, and useful suggestions for 
cartoons, a viveur and a good deal of a cynic. Brooks 
was then forty-two, and had been on Punch only 
seven years. Like Lemon, he was a very versatile 
and industrious man and could turn his ready pen 
and astounding memory to anything. But neither 
was more than a journalist : nothing that they 
wrote lived after them. Shirley Brooks appears for 
the most part as a brilliant commentator, interject- 
ing single remarks ; but he has stories, too, a little 
sardonic or destructive as a rule, as when he tells 
of the Yankee who refused to allow his wife to 
bring their children to see him hanged. "What 
a shame!" she replied: "just like you — never 
letting them have any pleasure." Brooks had many 

20 



Tom Taylor 

interests, and one week writes off to Augustus Egg, 
the artist, a suggestion for a picture : Dr. Johnson 
in his night rambk's putting pennies in beggar-boys' 
hands as they lay asleep on doorsteps. If this was 
not worked upon, it should be. 

Shirley Brooks was to succeed Mark as editor in 
1870, and Tom Taylor was to succeed Shirley in 
1874-. Tom Taylor in 1858 was forty-one and 
had been on Punch since 181-4. He was less nimble 
in fancy than Mark or Shirley, but was more solidly 
grounded than either, and not only was known by 
his dramas and adaptations, but had been Professor 
of English Literature in the London University and 
was art critic of the Times. He, like Lemon, is 
chiefly reminiscent and brings accounts of dinners 
he has attended and men he has met. But he has 
a few stories, one of which is of a child asking to be 
allowed to wear his drum while saying his prayers 
— if he promises not to think of it. 

An older hand on the paper than Taylor was 
Horace Mayhew, brother of Henry Mayhew, who 
had been in at the birth with Mark Lemon, but 
was now living in Germany and devoting liis time to 
the literature of philanthropy. In 1858 Horace was 
forty-two and had just come into money, which 
enabled him to take life easily and treat his Punch 
duties rather lightly. He was known as "Ponny" — 
supposed by Silver to be derived from Pony, Mayhew 
having acted as Mark Lemon's pony, or sub-editor, 
for some years. He could be argumentative and 

21 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

provocative, but that was when he had dined 
particularly well. One of the neatest puns in the 
book is his. Percival Leigh had been to South- 
ampton, where he played skittles in an alley 
decorated with portraits of the Muses. "The 
motto," said Mayhew, "should be 'Descend, ye 
Nine.'" 

Percival Leigh, known as the "Professor," was 
trained for a doctor, and at Bart.'s had liad as fellow- 
students Leech, Albert Smith, and Gilbert a Beckett, 
all on the staff of Punch in their time. Leigh joined 
the paper soon after it started in 1841. In 1858 he 
was forty-five, and he lived until 1889. The Diary 
makes him a rather precise if not dull, talker, and 
fond of serious discussion. Leigh and Leech were 
not only old friends, but they had collaborated, 
before Punch was started, on the Comic English 
Grammar and The Children of the Nobility. 

Next, the two artists, for there were but two on 
the Table in 18o8. Chief of these was John Leech, 
who, born in 1817, had been at Charterhouse with 
Thackeray (although much his junior). He joined 
Punch when it was three weeks old, and was its 
greatest draughtsman for many years. He was now 
forty-one, too near the end of his short life and 
beginning to be the victim of those street noises 
which accelerated that end. The Diary shows him 
to have been less genial and tolerant in conversation 
than with his pencil ; but he was of the greatest use 
in discussing the cartoons, although it was urged 

22 



Leech and Tenniel 

against him that his disapproval of suggestions was 
too drastic: a "juggernaut," Keene later called him, 
Leech's conversation is largely critical, but he has 
stories now and then, very much in the vein of his 
social jokes in the paper. One, for example, is of a 
little girl who was asked why she was so affectionate 
to her aunt, almost more so than to her mother, and 
replied, "Oh, mamma, of course I love you best, but 
then I must be civil to aunt because she spreads the 
jam." 

Next to Leech, John Tenniel, the only member 
of the staff at that time who is still living. Sir John 
joined Punch in 1850, and left to pass into honourable 
retirement in 1900. He is now (1913) in his ninety- 
fourth year. The Diary records few of his remarks, 
but shows him to have made excellent suggestions 
for pictures. He and Leech hunted together a 
good deal. 

The proprietors were William Bradbury, grand- 
father of one of the present heads of the firm, and 
Frederick, or "Pater," Evans, whose daughter 
married Charles Dickens the younger. There is no 
Evans in the business to-day. 

As to Silver himself, he seems to have been a very 
modest, quietly observant young man, with a useful 
knack of writing whatever was wanted on the rather 
more substantial side — such as theatrical notices, 
and so forth. His chief contribution to the paper 
was a Comic History of Costume, illustrated by 
Tenniel. 

23 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

Such, then, was the staff of Punch in 1858 when 
Silver's Diary begins ; but it is with these men only 
in relation to Thackeray that we are concerned. 
The Diary records many amusing things said by 
them; but for the most part these are anecdotes, 
puns, and repeated jests. Able as they were, and, 
collectively, powerful as they were, each is dwarfed 
in the presence of Michael Angelo Titmarsh. 

In 1858 Thackeray was forty-seven, and the author 
of Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Esmond, and The Newcomes. 
The Virginians was now appearing serially. He had 
still to become editor of the Cornhill and to write 
The Adventures of Philip. In the summer of 1858 
the unfortunate quarrel with Edmund Yates had 
begun and was still in progress. Yates had written 
in a periodical an account of Thackeray which 
Thackeray thought not only unjust but too personal. 
Thackeray also thought that only by being a member 
of the same club (the Garrick) as himself could Yates 
have obtained some of his data, and he therefore 
demanded Yates's expulsion. Dickens took Yates's 
side and the Punch men naturally took Thackeray's ; 
hence, to a large extent, the regrettable hostility to 
Dickens which continually appears in the Diary, but 
of which I say little or nothing. Rather does one 
remember, and again remember, what each man said 
of the other in moments of calm detachment, and 
particularly Thackeray's tribute to Boz : "I may 
quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand times ; I 
delight and wonder at his genius ; I recognise in it 
24 



An Old Carthusian 

— I speak with awe and reverence — a commission 
from that Divine Beneficence whose blessed task we 
know it will be one day to wipe every tear from 
every eye. Thankfully, I take my share of the feast 
of love and kindness which this gentle and generous 
and charitable soul has contributed to the happiness 
of the world. I take and enjoy my share, and say a 
Benediction for the meal." — The situation at the 
Punch Table was not made less difficult by the circum- 
stances that Mark Lemon and Dickens had been close 
friends, and Evans was the father-in-law of Charles 
Dickens junior. Also that Bradbury & Evans, after 
having been Dickens's publishers, were just about 
starting a rival to All the Year Round, called 07ice a 
Week. 

We meet Thackeray at the Table first on October 
21st, 1858, the dinner being at the "Bedford" in Covent 
Garden ; and he is at once kind to Silver and takes 
champagne with him. To have been at Charterhouse 
was a main road to the heart both of Thackeray and 
Leech. Thackeray "makes a cheese Devil to wind 
up with. Talks of Mackay [Charles Mackay, the 
song writer, now forgotten] and his liking for Kitawba 
wine ; and says his poetry is like it — sparkling but 
not so creamy as Moore's champagne or so sound as 
Scott's claret. Brooks makes some references to the 
Hoggarty Diamond, whereat Thackeray challenges 
him to champagne and inquires after his health and 
family's. Thackeray says that Leech has the best 
beer and claret in London. Wishes for a cottage, 

25 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

like Macready's, the walls hung with caricatures and 
cuts from Punch: there would he end his daj^s." 

On December 15th, 1858, it is discovered that an 
article in a preceding number, entitled "A Hall of 
Dazzling Light," describing Evans's Rooms under 
the name of "Bivins's," was by Charles Dickens 
junior, and is voted an imitation of Sala, and 
Thackeray describes Sala's style as "Dickens and 
water." The name of Sala, I may say, often crops 
up in these pages, and always leads to an argument 
as to how clever he is. One or two of the staff seem 
to have been a little envious of his gifts and success. 

On December 22nd, 1858, we find a guest at the 
Table — Sir Joseph Paxton, the great gardener and 
builder of the Crystal Palace, who was always wel- 
come. "Plain-spoken man," says Silver, "and drops 
an H occasionally ; but clearly a clear head, and not 
a bit stuck up." Sir Joseph confesses to having 
drunk in his time "enough champagne to wine the 
road from St. Paul's to Hammersmith." 

On January 19th, 1859, "Leech applauds the 
Saturday Review for cutting up Jerrold." Mark 
Lemon defends him, and in parting says to Silver, 
"I don't like to hear him ill-spoken of : he was always 
kind to young men and gave them a helping hand." 
Among the stories of Jerrold, a few of which are 
recalled whenever his name is mentioned at the 
Table, is. his reply to some one who said that when 
Thackeray was in Rome they tried to make a Roman 
of him: "They should have begun with his nose." 
26 



Libraries in Heaven ? 

It is needless to explain that Thackeray's nose was 
broken when he was at Charterhouse, but it is not 
so generally known that that is why he gave 
Titmarsh the Christian names of Michael Angelo, 
who also had this disfiguration. Thackeray and 
Jerrold seem not to have been on the best of terms. 
One reason given by Henry Silver is that the 
sight of Jerrold eating peas with a knife got on 
Thackeray's nerves. 

Thackeray comes in again on January SGth, and 
at the Table receives and corrects a Virginians proof. 
He tells Silver it will inform him of the name of the 
head master at Charterhouse a hundred years ago — 
Dr. Crucius. Owns to having been flogged, and says 
it "hurt like hell." 

On February 10th there is talk of books. Shirley 
wonders if reading books which one hasn't time to 
read on earth will form one of the joys of Paradise. 
Thackeray says that a man who produces cannot 
hope to read much. He then describes a German 
pianist guest of his who threw his best cigars on the 
fire, saying, "We paj^ duppence for a zigar like zis 
at Brussels." 

On March 2nd Thackeray is present to eat a 
haunch of venison, but has to leave at nine to "go 
to a tea-fight at the Bishop of London's." Thus do 
the gods interfere. But before he goes he has the 
opportunity to "laugh consumedly" at a joke of 
Shirley Brooks which I cannot possibly print, and to 
make a few kindred ones himself, and to say to Silver, 
27 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

"I went to Charterhouse the other day. Hadn't 
seen School come out since I left. I saw one little 
fellow with his hands behind him and a tear on his 
cheek and two little cronies with their arms round 
his neck, and I knew what had happened and how 
they'd take him away and make him show his cuts." 
(Mr. Spielmann, in his History of Punch, quotes nearly 
the whole of this entry : the only extract from the 
Diary that has previously been made.) 

There is then a long interval, and the next dinner 
to be described is January 18th, 1860, when the 
news is brought that 80,000 of the first number of 
Cornhill, under Thackeray's editorship, have been sold. 

On February 1st, 1860, Leech tells of treating 
his little girl to a shillingsworth of Punch and 
Judy. "Doorsteps and pavement instantly crammed. 
Where do the children come from?" Considering 
how Leech suffered from street-organs, this encour- 
agement of the itinerant entertainers was very brave 
and good of him. He goes on to tell of the time 
when he was in a debtors' prison. He once saw "a 
few boys having a holiday — being taken to see a 
gentleman arrested." Percival Leigh sold litho- 
graphed caricatures for him. "Used to kiss female 
prisoners through the bars." 

On February 8th, 1860, we have the debut at the 
Table of Charles Keene. Keene was then forty-six, 
had drawn for Punch since 1851, and was destined 
to be a pillar of the paper for thirty-one years. Sir 
Joseph Paxton was present, and Mark Lemon, when 

28 



Samuel Rogers 

he asked him to champagne, was accused of "fawning 
on the aristocracy." 

On February 15th Thackeray appears again, and 
the guest of the evening is the Rev. S. Reynolds 
Hole, afterwards Dean of Rochester, and a famous 
rose-grower. Thackeray had received £50 for a lec- 
ture at Liverpool, and put it into ten dozen of port. 
"Laid in 200 dozen of claret last year at £5." 
After dinner he goes first to the Geographical 
Society and then to Lord Cockburn's the Chief 
Justice. 

On March 14th there is talk of Samuel Rogers. 
Leech calls him roundly a humbug, but Tom Taylor 
denies this. He tells of dining with Rogers and 
old Maltby — "petit diner et pas d'erreuer — 3 smelts 
for fish and all on that scale," and goes on to imitate 
Rogers' toothless voice saying, "I'm an old man and 
have a small voice; and if I don't say ill-natured 
things sometimes, I shouldn't be listened to." Re- 
lates that Rogers told Maltby that somebody actually 
asked if his name was Rogers. "Well, and wasn't 
it?" replied Maltby, obliviously repeating the offence. 
This, by the way, was William Maltby (1763-1854), 
the librarian of the London Institution for many 
years, and the lifelong friend of the banker-poet. 

On April 11th, 1860, Thackeray, having got rid 
of No. 5 of the Cornhill, is thinking of running over 
to Paris for a day or so. "He gives kudos to Gryll 
Grange by Peacock. Written by a gentleman, he 
says. Adds later that he would like to have four 
29 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

sheets a year to write and no more." Then, "he 
would write such letters to ladies." Thackeray 
writes a poetical inscription in The Virginians to 
Peter Rackham (a financial friend of Bradbury and 
Evans, who was present at the dinners now and 
then), but Silver gives only this : — 

different opinions 

.... about The Virginians. 
Accept the book, dear friend, and if you find it 
Pleasant to read ... I hope you'll bind it. 

On October 16th Thackeray was not present, but 
there was talk of him. Taylor thought him the 
most miserable of men, mentally as well as from 
almost constant pain. Leigh likens him to Swift — 
"despises Vanity Fair [the place, not the book] and 
despises himself for taking pleasure in it." Lemon 
tells of Thackeray at a dinner given to Dickens 
when John Forster, with whom Thackeray was on 
very bad terms, said, "Here are our two greatest 
writers. One extracts good from evil, and the other 
finds evil in everything that's good." Thackeray, 
I may say, was subject for years to spasms which 
caused him both pain and anxiety. 

On October 30th the staff discuss schoolboy ethics. 
Tom Taylor holds that every one has stolen when a 
boy. He himself stole his schoolmaster's apples. 
Leech is indignant and says, "God forbid my boy 
should steal." Taylor tells of Sala leaving lodgings 
at Erith suddenly after ordering a beef -steak pudding 

30 



Scott and Tennyson 

for dinner and returning six months later with the 
remark, "Is that pudding boiled yet?" 

On November 6th Thackeray is {jresent again and 
quotes these lines as a sample of rhythmical in- 
genuity, but they cannot, I feel, be correctly given 
by Silver : — 

Let some intelligent officer be sent to the front ; 
"Hardman, step forward," said Sir Hussey Vivien, K.C.B., 
"and bear the battle's brunt." 

In a conversation on the theme. Which great man 
of the past one would soonest meet ? Brooks, Leigh, 
and Silver say Dr. Johnson, but Thackeray chooses 
Scott: "that dear old Sir Walter." He adds that 
Byron was a "raffish snob." 

On November 20th Thackeray is troubled by a 
little coolness shown him by one of Dickens's 
children. "Let fathers hate each other like hell, 
but why need their children quarrel.^" he says. He 
denies that it is natural for rival writers to be 
enemies. He calls Tennyson "the greatest man 
of the age : has thrown the quoit farthest." Brooks 
thereupon remarks that Vanity Fair ranks higher 
than anything of Tennyson's, and asks, "Would you 
change your reputation for his?" "Yes," says 
Thackeray ; but is not believed. Scott as a poet 
then crops up and is praised for stirring the blood. 
"But," says Thackeray, "I don't want to have my 
blood stirred;" and afterwards, "Thank God that 
the world is wide and tastes are various, and what- 

31 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

ever mental food be offered there are sure to be 
customers." 

On December 4th Thackeray tells of his mother- 
in-law giving him claret a six sous, and now drink- 
ing wine of his at seven shillings a bottle. His 
daughters, too, are "terribly matured in their taste." 

On December 11th he remarks to Leech, "How 
happy we were this day forty years ago, breaking 
up at Charterhouse!" Remembers Leech at six- 
and-a-half in his form : Master Bush just like him. 
Leech tells how he has been "coaling the waits" 
from his bedroom window, and says he would like 
£1000 and a country life. "Couldn't do it," says 
Thackeray. Dickens, some one says, made £10,000 
bj' his readings in 1860. Thackeray says he made 
only half that altogether, and it is suggested that 
Leech should read publicly the lines under his 
drawings. 

The following week — December 18th, 1861 — the 
prevailing topic is the death of Prince Albert. 
Some one says that Sala has received £100 from 
Smith & Elder for a trip to Genoa to make a 
Cornhill article, and Thackeray adds that it is for 
the "Genoa-wary number," which is a fair sample 
of many outrageous puns of his that I have omitted. 

On January 8th, 1862, Shirley Brooks tells how 
he once danced with Grisi : "like waltzing with 
a whirlwind." Thackeray and Leech recall old 
Charterhouse songs. 

On January 15th Leech describes Manning's 

2>^ 



Street Music's Victim 

execution, which he saw, and tells of Calcraft the 
hangman saying of a hanging, "No, sir, I wasn't 
altogether pleased with it." 

On January ''29th Brooks tells of Rossini being 
summoned to Louis Napoleon's box and apologizing 
for his frock-coat. "No need of etiquette between 
sovereigns," was the reply. 

On February 5th Silver is asked by Thackeray if 
he recognizes his daughter in the person of a pine- 
apple from Pernambuco — "Pinus Silvse filia nobilis." 

On February 19th there is talk of Bill Jerrold. 
"He writes well and looks well," says Thackeray. 
"But his plays have all been damned," says some 
one. "Yes, he's a damned clever fellow," says 
Thackeray : "Now I could never get a play damned." 

On February 26th, 1862, Mark Lemon tells that 
he once dreamed a play, sprang up and sketched it, 
and got £100 and a violent cold. Keene says that 
he often dreams usable Punch jokes. "Thackeray 
tells of how he went to Bristol as a boy with his 
father the General, and his mother with her 
diamonds, and they went gorgeously to the play. 
And next time he went he was an actor himself, 
lecturing on the Georges." "Leech piteous in his 
complaints of the organ-men. 'Got up twice the 
other night to send them away. They're killing me. 
The only way to get sleep is to get into a train and 
give the guard half-a-crown to keep the door locked. 
Silver laughs and Tenniel laughs, but it's no joke 
indeed.' " 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

On March otli Leech says something lenient about 
Mormonism. "Aha!" Thackeray repUes, "I dine 
with you sometimes, and can tell your horrid 
thought. I'll be your haunting demon." Later 
Shirley quotes from The Shabby Genteel Story the 
saying that somebody spoke so satirically that 
nobody could understand him. "Bless you, Brooks !" 
says Thackeray. 

The next week, March 1*2^1, Thackeray brings 
news. He has left the Cornhill. Smith "a noble, 
generous fellow," says he, but wished to have a co- 
editor and not a sub. "Fact is, Thackeray doesn't 
do editor's work, which is to read and judge, not to 
write. . . . Thackeray has built his house, costing 
£5000, out of his two years' savings, nearly. Leigh 
tries to make him hark back — only a slight difference 
and might be adjusted. Thackeray says Lucas 
[editor of Once a Week] pitched into him for trying 
to get Once a Week artists to work for Cornhill. 
Keene refused. Thackeray thinks Free Trade is 
the right policy in literature and art. Man takes 
his work where he's best paid for it. Thackeray 
likes his Lovel the Widower and Smith doesn't. 
Acted it at Kensington the other night — his 
daughter Minnie good, and Morgan John O'C. as 
footman." Mark Lemon then discourses of editor- 
ship and says that Thackeray's name made Cornhill, 
but Thackeray says it was made by Trollope's serial, 
Framley Parsonage. 

Later Thackeray says that John Forster cuts him, 

34 



The Palace Green House 

but "he can't be savage, because it was Forster who 
brought Dr. EHotson to him and saved his Hfe." 
Envying Brooks his ready pen, Thackeray says it 
takes him "two days to think of a Roundabout and 
one day to write it. Writes best out of his house : 
anywhere except at home." Elsewhere Silver says 
that Thackeray writes currente calamo and hardly 
makes a correction. Dickens, on the contrary, almost 
rewrites with interlineations. 

On April 9th Leech disapproves of Frith's "Derby 
Day." "Not a bit like life. Swell in black cloth 
trousers ! Says a man should like horses to paint 
them." 

On July 9th Thackeray has the staff to dine with 
him in his new house at Palace Green; Lucas, of 
Once a Week, and a nameless young man, a friend of 
the family, being also present. Thackeray's spoons 
are much admired, especially a Dutch one, with a 
chain on a leg, which he bought for £4 at The 
Hague, and saw one like it in the Strand marked 
£12. "Gilt foliated mirror frame, £30, very hand- 
some," Silver records. "Queer old pictures — Dutch 
fighting piece — portraits, &c." Thackeray says they 
were all "made out of his inkstand"; and adds that 
when he married he and his wife looked at a house 
in Brunswick Square and found it too dear — £80. 

On July 16th Lemon tells of a French duellist 
shooting a young Englishman after 1814. An 
Englishman in the green-room hearing the story 
goes out and returns in three days, saying, "I've 

35 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

shot that Frenchman." Thackeray says he met the 
EngUshman in Paris. (Silver queries if it were 
Captain Gronow.) 

On September 18th Thackeray is "brimming with 
bad jokes," but none are quoted. 

On September 24th Mark Lemon "talks of pawn- 
brokers dining together and pledging one another." 
The Telegraph has announced in its fashion columns 
that "Mr. Thackeray and Mr, Leech and the 
remainder of the Rothschild family" are at Folke- 
stone, and this leads to much chaff. 

On October 8th Thackeray says Mrs. Yates {n6e 
Elizabeth Brunton, the actress, and his enemy's 
mother) was his "boyish love." Talks of old farces, 
&c. Mark Lemon says that Punch was never so 
prosperous as now, in spite of the plagiary of ''''Punch,'"' 
as Thackeray calls Pun. Keene thinks that Punch 
some day will be drawn with a nimbus — St. Punch. 

On October 29th there is a discussion on life and 
its pleasures. Mark says that duties are worth 
living for. There is more happiness in helping 
others than in living for oneself. Brooks denies 
this. "Thackeray says that when he was on his 
death-bed (as he thought) he was perfectly content 
and happy. He is not deterred from wrong-doing 
by fear of a future state, but by feelings of present 
disgrace and dishonour." Later Thackeray "tells 
how Forster was annoyed by his hit at him in Esmond 
as 'Mr. Addison's man,' Dickens being Mr. Addison." 

On November 26th Thackeray says "he feels a 

36 



*^Mind, no Biography" 

sort of cTTopyrj [natural affection] when he reads liis 

daughter's [now Lady Ritchie] Story of Elizabeth. 

She has all my better parts and none of my worse." 

Brooks admires her pure English and likens her to 

Minerva from the brain of Jupiter. Thackeray says 

his feeling is shared by his mother, who says she 

can't read his books — "As many others do," he adds. 

Leech sleeps at his new house at Kensington for the 

first time to-night. (6 The Terrace, Kensington, 

which Silver afterwards took. It is now shops.) 

After he has gone, Thackeray "writes the Lord's 

Prayer in the size of a threepenny-bit, drawing the 

crown and 3 in centre, and gives it to Mark Lemon 

with lines round it : — 

Dear friend, I've writ this Httle page 
When one and fifty is my age, & etc. 

In walking away, I talk of reading John Wilson's 
Life (Christopher North) and admire his manliness in 
turning to work when he lost all his fortune : also his 
thrashing the tinker, &c. Thackeray dissents. Says 
John Wilson did nothing worth record and the effect 
of the Life on him [Thackeray] was to make him tell 
his daughters, 'Mind, no biography' — of himself." 

On April 1st, 1863, Thackeray says he writes 
when he sits down to write; as soon as he gets his 
nose to the desk his ideas come. Later he defends 
Colenso and denies the Creation in six days. But 
on this point, as we shall see, he changed his views. 
"Jonah and sun standing still he views as fables." 

On April 15th Leech tells of his rushing out of 

37 



Thackeray at the Punch Table 

bed to silence what he thought were Volunteers 
who were playing in a public-house near by. "We're 
Foresters, sir," said one. "Then why the devil 
don't you go and play in a forest?" Leech asked. 

On May 27th, 1863, Thackeray says that he once 
told his daughters that he wished they'd take the 
Bear at Esher for a home. Breakfasting at Glad- 
stone's recently, he met an American lawyer and 
thanked him for a Press which had warned him to 
change his investments. 

It was on June 17th, 1863, that Sir Francis 
Burnand ate his first dinner as a member of the 
Punch staff, on which he was to remain so long, 
succeeding Tom Taylor as editor in 1880. Thackeray 
was not present : but on June 24th he was, and very 
full of suggestions for a cartoon about sweating in 
dressmaker's workrooms. Said that to avoid any 
such result his daughters always ordered their 
dresses a month in advance. 

On July aSnd, 1863, the staff are again Thackeray's 
guests at Palace Green. In addition to Thackeray, 
there is a barrister cousin from Canada named 
Beacher, and a Southern American named De Leon, 
who had described blockade-running in Cornkill; 
but nothing much is recorded of the evening, except 
that there was turtle soup, turbot, curried lobster, 
venison pie, cold beef, jelly bloaters, and ice cream 
after cheese. Thackeray confessed to a fear of 
burglary and American share confiscations, and was 
demanding £lOO for each Ruundabout in consequence. 

38 



A Colenso Discussion 

On August Hth "the old Yates row crops up, and 
Thackeray fires at Horace Mayhew and says, 'Damn 
it, you fellows still seem to think it was because of 
his attack on my nose that I fell foul of him. I 
don't care a damn for my nose. He imputed dis- 
honourable conduct to me, and for that I got him 
kicked out of the Garrick.' 'With your strength 
you might have been more generous,' says Horace, 
and Thackeray blazes up and finally bolts." 

On December "^nd Thackeray chaffs Mark Lemon 
about a mistake in his novel Wait for the End, when 
he makes term-time at Cambridge in September. 
Lemon tells them that "Weaver" in the novel is 
Webster the actor, and "Stella" is Mrs. Mellon. 
Says Mrs. Mellon often used to come to him and say, 
"'I think So-and-So should have those lines to say: 
they'll be more effective so than if I say them.' 
Never knew any other actor to do this. 'Rupert 
Melville' he meant for Edmund Kean, who used to 
attend 'The Harp' by Drury Lane and stand 20 
glasses of grog to poorer actors, manj^ of whom 
drank themselves to death." Later the Table falls 
again upon a Colenso discussion, Thackeray contend- 
ing for the six days as stated by the actual Word 
of God. 

On December 9th Thackeray is late, as he "could 
not resist the tripe at the Reform Club." A week 
later he is present again, but for the last time, and 
"pitches into Mayhew because his [Thackeray's] 
two guineas to the Julian Patch subscription is 

39 



Thackera}^ at the Punch Table 

entered as coming from Arthur Pendennis. Says he 
particularly begged that his name might not appear : 
'They'll be at me again, those damned penny-a- 
liners.' Horace explains, and says the case is really 
a deserving one. 'Very well, then, I'll give you a 
fiver besides, in my own name,' says Thackeray. 
Tells also of one or two fellows who have extracted 
fivers and tenners from him at his house and at his 
clubs and in the streets and in the Parks. In fact, 
his purse is never safe." Again Colenso breaks in. 
Thackeray says, "We have God's own word (in His 
commandments) that He made the world in six days, 
and yet geologists tell us it took millions of years to 
make. Qiiien sahcf and these are his last recorded 
words at the Punch Table. 

Thackeray died on Christmas Eve, 1863, and 
Mayhew brought the news late in the evening, and, 
according to the late Frederick Greenwood, all 
joined in singing "The Mahogany Tree." The 
effect must have been overwhelming : — 

Here let us sport, 
Boys, as we sit ; 
Laughter and wit 
Flashing so free. 
Life is but short — 
When we are gone. 
Let them sing on 
Round the old tree. 

Mayhew led the song. I cannot conceive how he 
ever got through. 

40 



**The Mahogany Tree'* 

Evenings wc knew 
Happy as this ; 
Faces we miss, 
Pleasant to see. 
Kind hearts and true, 
Gentle and just, 
Peace to your dust ! 
We sing round the tree. 

The week following, the day of the funeral, there 
was no Dinner. Silver says, "I never felt a loss so 
much, except, of course, those of my relations. And 
yet I was not privileged to rank myself as more than 
a casual acquaintance. But his kindliness extended 
to the smallest of his visitors, and he never snubbed 
one or ignored their presence. What the loss must 
be to his old chum and schoolfellow Leech, who can 
pretend to estimate "^ . . . The loss is a national one, 
but the nation cannot judge how his family and his 
friends feel it." 

On January I'^th, 1864, "Leech says, 'Thank 
God we shan't have to go round with the hat : his 
daughters will have £1000 a year between them.' 
Says he can't sleep without dreaming of poor 
Thackeray — been sleeping alone, so disturbed is he." 

Leech survived his friend only a few months, 
dying on October 29th, 1864, aged only forty-six. 
Both lie at Kensal Green, and Shirley Brooks was 
buried near them. 

On November 7th Leech's successor, George Du 
Maurier, took his seat at the Table ; and so the 
world goes on. 

41 



A London Symposium -^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ 

WE were talking about London. It is a good 
subject. 

"What is the prettiest sight in London.^" some 
one had asked ; and we were discussing it, each 
naming his choice. 

"The prettiest sight in London?" I said. "Why, 
a string of hay barges being towed up the river by 
a tug at six o'clock on a fine afternoon. Seen 
from the Embankment somewhere about Cleopatra's 
Needle, or from Westminster Bridge looking east." 

They agreed that that was a good sight, and we 
passed on to the next opinion. This was the lady's in 
the grey hat. "The most beautiful sight in London 
in summer," she said, "is the sky above the Court of 
Honour at the White City just after the lamps are 
lit. It is the deepest, richest, intensest blue you 
ever dreamed of. There are many lovely intense 
blues — the blue of the peacock, the blue of the 
kingfisher, the blue of a Persian tile, the blue of a 
Rhodian plate — but this is the most wonderful of all." 

We agreed again ; but an objection was lodged by 
42 



London Birds 

the author of the debate. "Not a beautiful sight," 
lie said, "but a pretty sight is what we waut. You 
fly too high. London is so full of beauty that we 
must discuss that later. Just now we are after 
pretty things only. Next, please." 

The journalist came next. "To me," he said, 
"there is nothing prettier than the pigeons at the 
Museum soaring round and embarrassing a little girl 
with a bag of corn — especially if you see them as 
you go in, with the darkness of the portico for a 
background. That is pretty, if you like. And then 
some one will startle them, and they will fly up to 
the roof, blue grey and white grey against black and 
grey, and mere prettiness goes and beauty is achieved. 
The distinction is illustrated there in perfection, I 
think." 

"If it comes to birds," said his neighbour, "surely 
the gulls at Blackfriars Bridge are even more beauti- 
ful. Their movements are freer, their wings are 
broader; they suggest the open sea. And yet here 
they are in London in their hundreds waiting to be 
fed, just as if they were sparrows on a frozen lawn 
in winter." 

"Oh, but what about the little red cottage among 
the rushes at the Horse Guards' end of St. James's 
Park?" said the lady in the black hat. "It is like 
a toy, and the ducks and moorhens and coots and 
terns swim about in the water beneath it, while the 
guinea-fowls and pelicans and storks promenade on 
the banks. That's most awfully pretty always." 

43 



A London Symposium 

The lady in the purple hat, who sat next to her, 
murmured approval. "Yes," she said, "I have 
often watched them. But my vote for the prettiest 
sight would, I think, go to the little mothers in the 
parks — Kensington Gardens, say — all so busy with 
their families — so grubby and so slangy and yet so 
responsible and masterful. I see them every fine 
day, and they always delight me. It is funny that 
little girls should so naturally suggest mothers, 
while little boys never suggest fathers. Yet so 
it is." 

There was some talk as to whether the lady in 
the purple hat had described prettiness so much as 
an interesting spectacle ; but, after all, it depends 
(as she said) very much on how you use words. 

"Well," said her neighbour, "I believe I can 
beat that. You vote for the little girls; my vote 
shall go to the little boys. Do you know that this 
summer, on a hot week-day afternoon, I went all 
the way to Victoria Park in the East End just to 
see the bathers there .^ It's a shallow lake, a hundred 
yards long, and I swear to you that there were a 
thousand little East End boys in i c at once — all naked 
and glowing in the sun, and all so jolly. I never 
saw so many naked boys before. It was 'the colour 
of life' in intensest movement. I thought of Blake's 
line, 'thousands of little boys and girls waving their 
innocent hands' ; but these were flashing their 
innocent limbs. It is not only my prettiest London 
sight but the most cheerful." 
44 



The Pony-Carts 

This contribution completing the list, we waited 
for the author of the discussion to name his choice 
and end it. "Well," we asked, "and what is the 
prettiest sight in London ?" 

"The pony-carts," he answered. "The little pony- 
carts that crop up mysteriously among the wagons 
and taxis and motor-buses in Piccadilly and the 
Strand, even in Cheapside, and trot along so bravely 
and undismayed, and take their place so naturally 
in these untoward surroundings, and disappear as 
suddenly as they came. I always stand to watch 
them — the plucky little things, with their absurd 
little four brisk legs, and their four merry little 
hoofs, and their two ridiculous wheels. They are to 
me the prettiest sight in London." 

Personally I think the Victoria Park bathers 
won it. 



45 



Insulence *^> <:^ ^^ ^::^ ^^ ^^ 

THAT word at the head is spelled correctly. 
I wrote it with the greatest care. It is an 
invention of my own, a blend of "insular" and 
"insolence," and it was coined to describe that 
habit and carriage of an Englishman abroad which 
are found so objectionable by Continentals who have 
not our island heritage of security and liberty; and 
1 have been thinking about it because I suddenly 
ran into two perfect examples of insulence the 
other da3% here, at home, in an English country 
district, and realized then, in a flash, how the 
Frencliman feels, and why. For the moment, 
indeed, I was a Frenchman, and these were invaders 
from a dominant race who have no conscription to 
make all men equal. Personally I hate the idea 
of conscription, but I think I can understand how 
it feels to be one of a conscripted people and watch 
the unimaginative and complacent antics of visitors 
from a nation of cricketers ruled by a Cabinet of golf- 
plaj^ers, as one of our most caustic critics has put it. 

As a matter of fact, it was from two golfers that 
I gained my insight into insulence. 
46 



The Royal and Ancient 

Why does golf make some men so intolerable ? 
Not all, of course, but too many. Why is it that 
one would rather walk home than sit in a railway 
compartment amid a certain type of golfer ? Racing 
men can be coarse enough; but they do seem to 
belong to the human family. Cricketers can be 
boring enough, with their slang and their records; 
but they, too, are men. Footballers can be noisy 
and rowdy enough; but there is a basis of geniality 
under all. Lawn-tennis players can be frivolous 
enough; yet one knows that they mean well. But 
these golfers } What is there about golf to so lift a 
man's nose, and curl his lip, and steel his manners, and 
doom him to dwell in the wilderness of superiority ^ 

I have thought about this problem a good deal, 
and have hazarded scores of conjectures. Can it 
be that he has a suspicion ? Can he feel that this 
discreet and pedestrian pastime, at any rate for a 
young and active man, is a little bit foolish "^ Can 
he wonder sometimes if a man who carries such a 
quiverful of clubs with which to urge so small and 
white a ball over suburban fields is not an object 
of laughter .^ Does he ever speculate whether he 
ought not to be doing something else ? Can he 
entertain a doubt that a game may be wrong when 
it involves the employment of a boy to carry one's 
implements and is played by so many couples at 
once, each in a sea of green enisled, passing like 
ships in the night .^ It may have occurred to him, 
very possibly, that the true root-idea of a game in 

47 



Insulence 

the open air is a communistic striving at high 
pressure, and that possibly the ahnost episcopaHan 
discretion and selectness of golf are a mistake and 
a rather foolish one. 

I am not bringing these charges against golf. I 
am merely speculating on the causes of the insulence 
of insulent golfers. I am trying to find some reason 
for the conversion by this game of quiet, nice, 
modest men into monsters of metallic aloofness and 
self-esteem. Aware of the game's pettinesses, is it 
that they are forced into unnatural crustaceousness 
and complacency as a defence ? 

Or perhaps they may be overburdened by the 
consciousness of their legs ? For this game, which 
involves only a stationary ball and calls for no running 
— nothing more than such a sober and dignified gait as 
an undertaker might indulge in, or a Bath-chair man — 
yet demands knickerbockers and stockings. Perhaps 
some men's calves are too much for them. They were 
for Sir Willoughby Patterne, the champion egoist, 
who would surely have played golf superbly. I am 
inclined rather to favour this calves theory because 
I have often found golfers to be quite social, kindly 
creatures in their ordinary clothes, when not bent 
upon their sport. Released, indeed, from its 
dominion, they can be as other men. But once 
they come again under its power, instantly their 
naturalness disappears, and the iron (and often the 
brassie) enters into their soul. 

Or it may be that the golfer is overcome by the 
48 



The Stolen Commons 

age and honourable traditions of his game. It may 
even be that he took to it because of a certain 
aristocratic aroma that clings to it, and, fearful 
of being thought an intruder, he too adopts the 
classic restraint and disdain of Vere de Vere — as 
he imagines it. Here and there the village people 
whose common has been converted into a links bj' 
the neighbouring gentry are allowed also to play, 
when the light is getting poor, and are encouraged 
by a cup or medal (I have a case in mind where 
the common is not safe to walk over any longer) ; 
but for the most part golf remains exclusive : a kind 
of open-air extension of club-life. Perhaps it is 
this high-handed confiscation of commons that is 
preying on the golfer's mind, and he has added a 
veneer of moral confidence and self-approval to 
conceal the subsidence of conscious virtue within. 

Or is it that the game is too much for him all 
round .^ As some horses cannot stand oats, so some 
men cannot stand golf. Again I am only specu- 
lating, and speculating, probably, very idly. But 
it is an interesting study, the anti-social demeanour 
of the insulent golfer, even if one observes it for no 
other purpose than to try to be more at one with the 
critical Continental. 

Yet even I, who write these words, perhaps have 
the appearance of a golfer when I am abroad. 



49 



A Good Poet ^c^^ ^^^r^.. <;::> <^^ 'v^ 

THIS is frankly a eulogy. For that is the only 
way to deal with poetry : either leave it alone 
or be enthusiastic about it. It is also an expression 
of thanks, for many of Mr. Chalmers's lines have 
been running in my head this last fortnight, an 
undercurrent of melody amid all London's cacopho- 
nies, and since every lyric in his little book ^ gives 
me pleasure, I want to state my gratitude to him 
for the new music and new fancy and new grace which 
he has brought into a world the visible delights of 
which he is tireless in extolling. 

England was never richer than now in writers of 
light verse, many of them of astonishing technical 
excellence, and most of them urbanely witty to a 
point that fills an ordinary person with despair; but 
Mr. Chalmers, while equal to any in deft dexterity, 
is different. He is less of the school of Seaman 
than of Dobson ; indeed, he has been reviving in 
me sensations of satisfaction such as I have not 
felt since Old-lVorld Idylls (which, with Abbey's 

* Green Days and Blue Days. By Patrick R. Chalmers. 
Maunsel & Co., Dublin. 3s. 6d. 

50 



Of the Tribe of Austin 

frontispiece and its perfect title-page, and Alfred 
Parsons's tailpiece, I shall always consider the best- 
published book of our time) made life so much 
better in 1883. There is nothing derivative about 
Mr. Chalmers ; it is merely that his view of things 
is not unlike Mr. Dobson's. He, too, has the lightest 
of touches, the urbanest of smiles, a memory stored 
with classical lore, a tender heart, and the gentlest 
sophisticated humour; where he differs chiefly from 
Mr. Dobson is in his love of the open air. Mr. Dobson, 
I feel sure, has shot no partridge, stalked no deer, 
killed no salmon ; Mr. Chalmers rejoices in sport. 

Mr. Chalmers does as a poet what I as a critic 
should like to do — he writes only of such things as 
please him. He spins little fantasies about old 
china and Oriental figures; he revels luxuriously 
in memories of fishing days ; he lets his thoughts 
wander to the river bank on summer nights; he 
tilts wittily and wisely at the things that do not 
matter; he commemorates the virtues of his dogs; 
he glorifies flowers and butterflies; and now and 
then he crystallizes his experience in some ingenious 
apologue. Now and then, too, he has eyes and a 
phrase for a pretty girl. And it is all done so 
musically and so engagingly, and yet with a certain 
seriousness as well, which is, I think, the reason that 
he makes such an appeal. One knows that he feels 
what he writes. It all comes from within. 

Let me borrow gaiety and distinction and charm 
for my pages by quoting two or three examples. 

51 



A Good Poet 

This "Contrast" shows Mr. Chalmers at his most 
ingenious and most cultured. It is almost an indoor 
poem, not quite. Nothing can keep Mr. Chalmers 
indoors for long, and there is his strength and, as I 
have said, his chief difference from Mr. Dobson, 
who has never wandered farther than to the sundial, 
bless him ! Has not this grace and movement ? — 

A CLASSICAL CONTRAST 

I have (in bronze) a tiny 

Adventuress of Greece, 
A little laughing Phryne, 

Upon my mantelpiece, 
And when I see her smiling 

Imagination strays 
Once more in brave, beguiling, 

Divine Athenian days ! 

Cool marble courts are ringing 

As merry voices call. 
Where girls are garland-stringing 

For Springtime's festival ; 
In lanes of linked lightness 

The roses rope, and flow 
Blood-red upon the whiteness 

Of chiselled Parian snow ! 

I have a pot of pewter, 

And when the firelight gleams 
It too will turn transmuter 

Of commonplace to dreams. 
Then, though the year's at ember 
. Once more high June doth reign 
And I in dreams remember, — 

And win the thing again ! 

52 



"To a Chalk-Blue" 

On turf of headland thymy, 

Where brine-washed breezes strive, 
I lay the subtle stymie, 

I drive the spanking drive ; 
I see the grey tides sleeping, 

I watch the grey gulls wheel, 
Till through the dusk come creeping 

The lights of distant Deal ! 

pewter and O Phryne, 
Since both of you may bring 

Your visions blue and briny 
Or garlanded of Spring : 

1 welcome you together 

Upon my mantelpiece, 
And love both magics, whether 
Of England or of Greece ! 

As an example of Mr. Chalmers's happiness of 
touch and joy of life in his Nature-poems take these 
lines "To a Chalk-Blue" : — 

Butterflies, Butterflies, delicate downy ones, 
Golden, and purple, and yellow browny ones. 
Whites, reds, and tortoiseshells, what's in a hue ? 
You're worth the whole lot of them, little Chalk-Blue ! 



Fabled ApoUos, of bug-hunters' hollow tales, 
Camberwell Beauties, Large Coppers, and Swallow-tails, 
They've fled from high farming, they've gone down the 

breeze, 
To Elfland, perhaps, or wherever you please. 

You, Master Blue, hold by man and his handiworks. 
Chalk-pits and cuttings, and engineers' sandy works. 
Sway on his wheat-stalks, most buoyant and bold, 
A turquoise a-droop on a chain of light gold ! 

53 



A Good Poet 

Here was your home, ere the Legion's lean warriors 

Laughed at the slings of Druidical quarriers, 

Or ever the Eagles came swooping ashore, 

You flew your blue ensign from Lizard to Nore ! 

Long may you linger and flourish exceedingly. 
Dancing the sun round all summer unheedingly. 
Sprite of his splendour, small priest of high noon, 
Oh, bold little, old little blue bit of June ! 

Could that particular butterfly have been more 
appropriately celebrated ? Do not the verses almost 
suggest its flight and hue ? 

You notice Mr. Chalmers's pretty use of the word 
"little." How many times he uses "little" in 
this volume I have not counted to see, but he 
knows its value better than most. There is an ode 
to Syrinx, "Little Lady loved of Pan"; there is a 
gossamer of speculation as to the identity of the 
heroine of a gardener's legend : — 

I like to fancy most 

That she is just some little lady's ghost 

Who loved her flowers 

And quiet hours 

In Junes of old ; 

there is a panegyric on "a little hound of Beel- 
zebub"; and so forth — all made the more attractive 
by this employment of an aflFectionate diminutive. 
And there is this charming suburban lyric : — 

Little garden gods, 

You of good bestowing. 

You of kindly showing 
Mid the pottiugs and the pods, 

54 



"If I had a broomstick" 

Watchers of geranium beds, 

Pinks and stocks and suchlike orders, 
Rose, and sleepy poppy-heads — 

Bless us in our borders. 
Little garden gods ! 



Little garden gods, 

Bless the time of sowing, 

Watering, and growing ; 
Lastly, when our sunflower nods, 
And our rambler's red array 

Waits the honey-bee her labours, 
Bless our garden that it may 

Beat our next-door neighbour's, 
Little garden gods ! 

Finally, here is a specimen of Mr. Chalmers in a 
more serious moment, where he handles a pathetic 
theme like a gentleman : — 

If I had a broomstick, and knew how to ride it, 
I'd fly through the windows when Jane goes to tea, 
And over the tops of the chimneys I'd guide it, 
To lands where no children are cripples like me ; 
I'd run on the rocks with the crabs and the sea. 
Where soft red anemones close when you touch ; 
If I had a broomstick, and knew how to ride it, 
Tf I had a broomstick — instead of a crutch ! 

And here (for there is a limit to the decent eking out 
of one's own copper with other men's gold) I stop: 
whole-heartedly commending this kindly, happy, and 
distinguished spirit to you. 

Much of the above I wrote and printed during 
the winter of 1912, just after Mr. Chalmers's book 
55 



A Good Poet 

was published. The article when it appeared was 
read by a very literary gent of my acquaintance, a 
pundit famous throughout our Sphere for his critical 
judgments, who at once favoured me with a letter 
stating that he had looked into Green Days and Blue 
Days and found it good, but not poetry. "Some day," 
he added, "I will send you a definition of poetry." 
That day has not yet dawned ; and I wonder how 
I can wait for it. But meanwhile let me say again 
that in my opinion the question of what is poetry 
can be answered only by each reader for himself. No 
definition framed by another is of the slightest use, 
except to embarrass young people at examinations 
and provide instructors w^ith the dry formulae by 
which they live. 

"Poetry," said a famous literary theorist the other 
day, "is that which is written by a poet." He said it 
as a joke, but it is far more to the point than "the best 
words in the best order," and other of the classical 
phrases. My own definition would be, "Poetry is 
what I cannot write myself"; but for more universal 
application, this perhaps is better: "Poetry is that 
which any reader finds poetical," for that sets the 
burden on individual backs, where it ought to be. 
Judged by this test, Mr. Chalmers is for me a very 
good poet indeed, and, like Mr. Dobson and Andrew 
Lang and Moira O'Neill, as good a poet as anyone 
under ordinary conditions ought to want; for he 
touches the matters of daily life with radiance, and 
hangs a veil of romance over experience, and sends 
56 



The Daily Muse 

you away happy. No doubt there are poets who have 
done more than this, and in rare moods one craves 
their society ; but Mr. Chalmers and those three others 
are more daily friends. Meanwhile that definition is 
still to arrive ! 



57 



Wordsworth Pour Eire -^ ^^ 



"^^ 



ANEW Wordsworth letter, dated November 17th, 
1844, printed recently, protesting against the 
projected railway through the Vale of Winder- 
mere, would seem to have been called forth by a 
footnote to the poet's sonnet of October in the 
same year beginning — 

Is, then, no nook of English ground secure ? 

The footnote ran thus : — 

The degree and kind of attachment which many of the 
yeomanry feel to their small inheritances can scarcely be over- 
rated. Near the house of one of them stands a magnificent tree, 
which a neighbour of the owner advised him to fell for profit's 
sake. "Fell it ! " exclaimed the yeoman ; " I had rather fall on 
my knees and worship it." It happens, I believe, that the in- 
tended railway would pass through this little property, and I 
hope that an apology for the answer will not be thought neces- 
sary by one who enters into the strength of the feeling. 

In the new letter Wordsworth adds that this tree's 
owner, Mr. William Birkett, "furious at the thought 
of the railway going through his property," is pre- 
pared to give £1000 to prevent the line. 

But let us inquire a little deeper. Of Words- 
S8 



Localities Alter Cases 

worth's four railway sonnets, the "Proud were ye, 
Mountains" is the best known : — 

Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old, 
Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war, 
Intrenched your brows ; ye gloried in each scar : 
Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold, 
That rules o'er Britain like a baneful star, 
Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold. 

That was in 1844. Yet see how the poet had written 
to Charles Lloyd, the Birmingham banker, in 18*25 : — 

"To come to the point at once, I have been led 
to consider Birmingham as the point from which the 
railway companies now forming receive their princi- 
pal impulse, and I feel disposed to risk a sum — not 
more than £500 — in purchasing shares in some 
promising company or companies. I do not wish to 
involve you in the responsibility of advising an in- 
vestment of this kind, but I hope I do not presume 
too much when I request that you would have the 
kindness to point out to me what companies are 
thought the most eligible, adding directions as to 
the mode of proceeding in case I determine upon 
purchasing." 

The late J. K. S., it will be remembered, desiring 
once again to parody Wordsworth, took the railway 
theme and (knowing nothing of the above letter) 
produced his piquant lines on "The Insufficiency of 
Steam Locomotion in the Lake District," of which 
here are two stanzas : — 

59 



Wordsworth Pour Rire 

Bright Summer spreads his various hue 

O'er nestling vales and mountains steep, 
Glad birds are singing in the blue, 

In joyous chorus bleat the sheep. 
But men are walking to and fro, 

Are riding, dri\dng, far and near, 
And nobody as yet can go 

By train to Buttermere. 

Wake, England, wake ! 'tis now the hour 

To sweep away this black disgrace — 
The want of locomotive power 

In so enjoyable a place. 
Nature has done her part, and why 

Is mightier man in his to fail ? 
I want to hear the porters cry : 

"Change here for Ennerdale !" 

One does not draw attention to the inconsistency 
of Rydal Mount from any petty motive, but merely 
as an illustration of how pleasantly vulnerable our 
greatest may be. Wordsworth, also, it might be 
held, owes us a laugh now and then. In his lifetime 
he pleaded guilty to only one conscious joke, and 
when a man of advanced age who so understood his 
lowlier neighbours does that, we must find jokes for 
him. His joke, by the way, was this. He had been 
walking, he said, when a carter stopped him with 
the question, "Have you seen my wife.'^" And 
what was the poet's gravity-removing reply? "My 
dear sir," he answered, "I did not even know that 
you had a wife." That is not exactly in the accept- 
able manner of George Graves; but it will do. 
Providence, however, came in and made it better ; 
60 



A Joke's Epilogue 

for the American critic, William Winter, when a 
small boy, was taken to Rydal by his father on a 
devout pilgrimage to the Mount. While the elders 
sat in the garden, the little Winter was sent out to 
the poet with a message. "Please, sir," said he to 
the author of "The Excursion," "your wife wants 
you." "You shouldn't say 'your wife,'" replied the 
poet reprovingly; "you should say 'Mrs. Words- 
worth.'" "But she is your wife, isn't she?" was 
the answer of astonished Young America. 

And now for the very cream of Wordsworth's 
career as a humorist, which has been sent to me by 
that inspired investigator of out-of-the-way printed 
matter, Mr. Bertram Dobell. It consists of a short 
article from the Illustrated London News of Feb- 
ruary 10th, 1855, and if anyone can read it aloud 
without collapse I envy his self-control. The con- 
scious funny man never wrote anything that to my 
mind is droller. It runs thus : — 

"Our notice last week of the sister of William 
Wordsworth has afforded us an opportunity of 
hearing from the lips of a true poet an account of a 
visit which he made to Wordsworth. His story is 
in every way characteristic of the great author of 
' The Excursion ' ; and we have our friend's per- 
mission to tell it, but are not at liberty to mention 
his name : — 

"In the summer of 1846, when on a visit to the 
Lake District, I called upon Mr. Wordsworth, to con- 
vey a message from his daughter, then in London. 
6i 



Wordsworth Pour Rire 

He received me with a kindly shake of the hand. 
'I am told,' said he, 'that you write poetry; but 
I never read a line of your compositions, and I don't 
intend.' I suppose I must have looked surprised, 
for he added, before I could find time to reply, 
'You must not think me rude in this, for I never 
read anybody's poetry but my own, and haven't done 
so for five-and-twenty years.' Doubtless I smiled. 
'You may think this is vanity, but it is not; for I 
only read my own poetry to correct its faults, and 
make it as good as I can.' 

"I endeavoured to change the subject by some 
general remarks on the beauty of the scenery A-isible 
from his garden, in wliich our interview had taken 
place. ' What is the name of that mountain ? ' I 
inquired. 'God bless me,' he said, 'have you not 
read my poems ? Why, that's Nab-Scar. There are 
frequent allusions to it in my writings. Don't you 
remember the lines .^ ' and he repeated in a clear, 
distinct voice a well-known passage from 'The 
Excursion.' 

"The name of Southey having been accidentally 
mentioned, I inquired as a matter of literary history 
whether, as was commonly believed, he had im- 
paired his health and his intellect by too much 
mental exertion, and thus brought on that com- 
parative darkness of mind which clouded the last 
months of liis life. 'By no means,' said Wordsworth; 
'Southey was a most methodical worker. He 
systematized his time. He was never confused or in 
62 



**Mr. Laman Blanchard'* 

a hurry, and got through a deal of labour with an 
amount of ease and comfort which your hurry-scurry 
kind of people can neither accomplish nor under- 
stand. The truth is — at least, I think so — that his 
mind was thrown off its balance by the death of his 
first wife, and never afterwards wholly recovered 
itself.' 

"I reminded him at this point that the late Mr. 
Laman Blanchard, whose sad story was then fresh in 
the recollection of the public, had been reduced to 
a state of insanity by a similar bereavement. From 
that moment my name seemed to fade away from 
Mr. Wordsworth's recollection, and he always ad- 
dressed me during the remainder of our interview 
as Mr. Laman Blanchard. His sister, Miss Words- 
worth, was wheeled into the garden in a little 
garden-carriage, or chair, impelled by Mrs. Words- 
worth. I wore on my head a Glengarry travelling- 
cap, with a sprig of heather ; and Miss Wordsworth 
no sooner caught sight of me than she exclaimed in 
a shrill voice, 'Who's that man, brother.^' 'Oh, 
nobody, my dear,' he replied. 'It's only Mr. 
Laman Blanchard.' I gently hinted my right name. 
'It's all the same to her, poor thing,' he re- 
joined. 

"He would possibly have added more, but the 
unfortunate lady interrupted him by commencing to 
sing the well-known Scotch song — 

A Highland lad my love was born, 
The Lowland laws he held in scorn. 

63 



Wordsworth Pour Rire 

She sang one verse with mucli correctness, and was 
commencing another when Mr. Wordsworth led me 
away. 'This is a })ainful scene, Mr. Blanchard,' he 
said; 'let us go into my room, and I will read you 
some more passages from my poems about Nab- 
Scar.' " 



64 



Old Crome's Hobbema ^;>^ -^^ ^::> ^v>y 

[.4 paper read at Norwich on May 5th, 1913, in aid 
of a fund to repair the roof of St. George's Church, 
Cole gate, where Crome is buried.] 

I SUPPOSE that every painter, except here and 
there a Diogenes, admits to a favourite among 
earlier craftsmen. Even Michael Angelo, command- 
ing and innovatmg as he was, delighted in Luca 
Signorelli; even the jealous and self-sufficing Turner 
confessed that Albert Cuyp excited him to envy; 
while Wilson worshipped Claude; and in our own 
day, as I have heard, Mr. Sargent steals often away 
across the North Sea to Haarlem to make copies of 
the most carelessly masterly of all the masters, Frans 
Hals himself. 

John Crome's darling was also a Dutchman — the 
landscape painter Hobbema. 

Every one must have heard how the old genial 

landscapist as he lay dying and now^ and then making 

with his hands the motions of painting a picture, to 

an accompaniment of satisfied murmuring, used his 

F 65 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

latest breath in extolling his idol. "Hobbema, my 
dear Hobbema," he exclaimed as the light faded 
for ever, "how I have loved you !" and so was dead. 

If this be a true story, his famous dying injunc- 
tion to his son to dignify whatever he painted — "If 
your subject is only a pigsty, my boy, dignify it" — 
came earlier. 

Be that as it may, we can feel certain that the 
passionate farewell to Hobbema is authentic; and it 
is because, in this city and in this house ^ (which has 
so many Cromes, and even his palette), to say new 
things about John Crome himself would be so 
arduous a task, if not an impossible one, that I 
thought of turning the lantern rather upon Crome's 
Hobbema and Hobbema's Ruysdael as an ingenious 
diversion, which would at the same time have 
genealogical propriety. For though we are all too 
sensible, I hope, to talk of imitators, the fact remains, 
that before Hobbema there was Jacob, or the great, 
Ruysdael, and before Crome, Hobbema ; and what 
would have happened to hundreds of living and 
recent landscape painters both English and French 
had there been no Crome, we need not stop to 
conjecture. For the House of Art, though it has 
many mansions, is built of stones joined together 
in such interdependence that it would hardly be 
possible to withdraw one without serious and far- 
reaching disturbance. 

Whatever Crome gained from his darling — and 
1 Crown Point, the residence of Mr. Russell Colman. 

66 



"The English Hobbema" 

most likely it was direction and enthusiasm more 
than anything else — when as a lad he borrowed from 
Thomas Harvey of Catton a picture by Hobbema 
to copy, he never achieved the indignity of being 
called, after a bad habit of which art critics are too 
fond, "The English Hobbema," although, according 
to Dawson Turner of Yarmouth, the banker and anti- 
quary and one of Crome's patrons, he panted for it. 
Turner tells us that to wear that label — to be known 
near and far as "The English Hobbema" — would 
have been the summit of Crome's ambition ; and 
Turner certainly ought to know, for he and Crome 
were intimate (although not so intimate as he and 
Cotman), and it was he who acquired Harvey's 
example of Hobbema and included a drawing of it, 
together with several Cromes, in his Outlines in Lithog- 
raphy, in 1840, a book which is the principal source 
of biographical information concerning Crome. 

The Hobbema which Crome copied is there dis- 
covered to be a typical wooded scene, very like 
No. 995 in the National Gallery — a cottage on the 
right, peasants in the road, and leaves and branches 
over all. Dawson Turner bought it in 1815, and at 
his sale it passed to Lord Scarsbrick. I have not 
been able to trace its present abode. 

The critics, however, although they let Crome 
escape them, did not completely fail in fixing their 
facile label somewhere ; and it was poor Patrick 
Nasmyth who had to wear it. As "The English 
Hobbema" he was and is known. 

67 



Old dome's Hobbema 

In any case, Crome can never have it now, for 
enough time has passed to make it clear as crystal 
that he was not the Enghsh Hobbema any more 
than Hobbema was the Dutch Crome, but gloriously 
and eternally he was the English Crome. 

And, to revert for a moment to Patrick Nasmyth, 
neither was he the English Hobbema, although often 
very near it, but a sincere individuality in art with a 
passion for Nature not less true than Crome's own, 
and other points of resemblance, including a kindred 
liking for the social glass, neither of them being in 
the least attracted by the frigid allurements of 
teetotalism. Nasmyth also came by his premature 
death in a manner only too similar to that of his great 
Norwich contemporary ; for whereas Crome caught 
his fatal chill while painting a water frolic, Nasmyth 
caught his while painting some pollarded willows by 
the Thames. And while Crome in extremis called 
upon Hobbema in that fine rapture, Nasmyth's last 
words, as he sat propped up in bed to watch a 
thunderstorm, were : "How glorious it is !" 

A little more about Harvey and Crome and 
Dawson Turner before we cross the North Sea. 
I cannot find out as much of Thomas Harvey of 
Catton as I should like ; and I regret this, since 
a stud}' of the earliest patrons of genius is as well 
worth making as any. The later ones are less 
important. 

Harvey was both a pioneer and a friend in need, 
for he befriended Crome when that youth required 
68 



Thomas Harvey 

encouragement and the stimulus of being discovered. 
Cronie was then a hobbledehoy painting carriage- 
wheels for Francis Whisler in Bethel Street, and 
sometimes a house, and sometimes a signboard, and 
even, according to Turner, now and then painting 
Cupids, and hearts with darts through them, on 
sweetmeats for a Norwich confectioner. 

I wonder if it had before occurred to you that 
these things demanded an artist. I confess that it 
had not to me. But of course they do, just as, I 
suppose, those circular sweets with mottoes or pro- 
testations of affection upon them demand not only an 
author but a compositor and printer, and for all I 
know a proof-reader too. 

Possibly, indeed, if not probably, while Crome 
was painting his confectionery, his friend, and after- 
wards painting partner and brother-in-law, Robert 
Ladbroke, was actually engaged in printing such 
sweets, for it was as a printer that he began his 
career. According to Dawson Turner, Ladbroke's 
artistic enthusiasm did much to kindle Crome's. 

Thomas Harvey of Catton was a man of wealth 
and something of an amateur artist, as we know by 
his leaving behind him fifty etchings of cattle. But 
he was more of a connoisseur, and he was the 
possessor of a small collection of good pictures, 
including a Hobbema and Gainsborough's famous 
"Cottage Door," and he allowed Crome to copy all 
of these. 

The second son of Thomas Harvey, a wool 

69 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

merchant, Mayor of Norwich in 1748, whose portrait 
is in St. Andrew's Hall, Mr. Harvey married Lydia 
Twiss, daughter of an English merchant living in 
Rotterdam. Hence perhaps his interest in Dutch 
painting. 

One of his brothers-in-law was Richard Twiss, who 
wrote Travels in Portugal, Spain, Ireland and France, 
which had some vogue in their day. Another 
brother-in-law was Francis Twiss, author of an Index 
to Shakespeare and the husband of Mrs. Siddons's 
sister, Francis Kemble, and these were the parents 
of a minor wit and man about town named Horace 
Twiss, whose good things were in everybody's mouth 
in the first half of the last century. 

Thomas Harvey died in 1819. He not only en- 
couraged Crome by putting his pictures at his dis- 
posal, but introduced him both to Opie, who later 
painted the fine portrait of Crome now in the 
Castle Gallery here, and to Beechey (afterwards 
Sir William), who had come to Norwich to court a 
miniature painter; and Beechey, when Crome went 
to London for a brief period, let him use his studio 
there, and was generally useful and stimulating. 

To Harvey, then, all praise is due from every lover 
of John Crome. 

The later patron, Dawson Turner, was younger 
than Crome by seven years and survived him for 
nearly forty. Interesting as are his recollections of 
the artist in the Outlines in Lithography, they are 
impaired by the author's high estimation of himself. 
70 



Early Vicissitudes 

The reader feels that the principal motive of the 
publication was to illustrate the extent of Turner's 
culture. His taste, however, was sound enough, for 
in 1840 he had eleven Cromes, the best of which 
was the incomparably beautiful "Moonrise at the 
Mouth of the Yare," now in the National Gallery, 
one of the Salting pictures. What Mr. Salting gave 
for it I do not know, but at Turner's sale in 1852 it 
was allowed to go for £30, 10s. 

Certain of Dawson Turner's statements I think 
we may doubt, as when he tells us that Crome had 
early difficulties of a "truly appalling kind," and 
hardships and trials "such as few have been able to 
overcome." The evidence is far from clear. It is 
not enough to say that the youthful Crome had to, 
"resort to his mother's aprons and to the very 
ticking of his bed for canvas," for if we are to be 
harrowed by such proceedings as that, what can our 
feelings be with regard to Benjamin West's cat, 
from whose body, for his earliest paint-brushes, he 
plucked the living hair ? As a matter of fact, 
Turner tells us, Crome made brushes from the same 
material ; but he had the sagacity (or humanity, 
since charity begins at home) to employ not the 
family cat, but the landlord's, and he did not wrench 
his booty, but clipped it. 

But was there much privation here ? All 
children who express a powerful desire to paint 
do not develop into masters, and Mrs. Crome was 
too poor to afford to gratify her son's whim by more 

n 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

direct methods. A little hardsliip does no boy any 
harm, and especially so if he is to be a genius. 

All that we know for certain is that Crome was of 
needy stock and that he did certain odd jobs before 
he could get rightfully to work as a painter of 
pictures ; while we know, too, that in later life, 
seated comfortably at his inn, of an evening, with 
plenty and admiration surrounding him, he liked to 
tell about his early struggles; but it is doubtful 
if those struggles were very serious, and we are all 
aware of what a temptation it is to the self-made 
man to exaggerate the difficulties of his task. 
Human nature has few more attractive foibles. 

My own feeling is that, such as they were, Crome's 
privations were all over before he was well in his 
teens. After that he was lucky : lucky in meeting 
his partner and brother-in-law Ladbroke, lucky in 
meeting Harvey and Opie and Beechey, and luckiest 
when such a highly respected, important gentleman 
as John Gurney of Earlham engaged him to teach 
his brood of seven Quaker daughters, among them 
that Betsy Gurney who afterwards became Elizabeth 
Fry, when it must have been fairly known in 
Norwich that Crome's eldest child was born only 
three weeks after its parents' marriage. 

The only piece of really poignant misfortune that 
I can find about Crome is the refusal of the landlord 
of the "Leg of Mutton," for whom he had painted 
a signboard, to pay for it. Crome had painted it 
raw and the landlord wanted it cooked. 
72 



J. M. W. Turner 

Allan Cunningham (who did not, however, include 
Crome in his British Painters) divides the responsi- 
bility for his culture verj^ exactly. It was, he tells 
us, with John Gurney of Earlham, among the 
Lakes, that Crome "felt his notions of landscape 
painting expand"; while it was with Daw^son Turner 
that the young painter "conversed on art, on litera- 
ture, and other matters of purity and excellence," 
Dawson Turner, we may feel sure, was ready to 
oblige with any amount of such talk. 

Cunningham, however, was not an inspired biog- 
rapher or critic, for after an excellent passage 
emphasizing Crome's love and knowledge of Nature, 
he undoes his praise with a concluding sentence 
that was meant to clinch all, but fails rather miser- 
ably. "With Crome," he says, "an ash hung with 
its silver keys was different from an oak covered 
with acorns." 

The most interesting thing that Dawson Turner 
tells us is that Crome returned from one of his 
later annual visits to London with his whole soul 
aglow with admiration of the great Turner's land- 
scapes at the Royal Academy. Since Crome died in 
the spring of 1821, this remark refers probably to 
1818, 19, or 20. In 1818 Turner exhibited "Raby 
Castle," "The Packet Boat from Rotterdam to Dort 
becalmed," and "The Field of Waterloo"; in 1819, 
"The Entrance to the Meuse" and "Richmond Hill 
on the Prince Regent's Birthday " ; and in 1820, 
"Raphael accompanied by La Fornarina preparing 

73 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

his pictures for the decoration of the Loggia of the 
Vatican." I expect it was either the Dort packet- 
boat or the Meuse which particularly dehghted 
Crome. 

In all his career Crome sent only fourteen pictures 
to the Academy, having the Norwich Society's Ex- 
hibitions to supply first, and how the great Turner 
considered these, or if he looked at them at all, 
we do not know. But apart from his natural scent 
for a rival. Turner should have been interested by 
Crome, for Crome could get very near that golden 
light which Turner, standing once before a picture 
by Cuyp, said he would give £1000 to reproduce. 

Turner and Crome had much in common. Not 
only had both imitated Wilson in their time, but 
both were devoted to Cuyp, and Turner, whatever 
he may have felt about Hobbema, had such an 
admiration for Jacob Ruysdael, Hobbema's master, 
that he whimsically gave the name of Ruysdael to a 
Dutch seaport in one of his National Gallery pic- 
tures — purely out of homage. 

Little enough is known of any Dutch painter, 
and less of Crome's Hobbema than most. In that 
wonderful seventeenth century of pictorial genius, 
Holland seems to have been so rich in artists that 
they ceased to be remarkable, and it is a question 
if, had a Dutch Dictionary of National Biography 
been in course of preparation, artists would have 
got in it at all. 

Gerard Dou might have been there, for he was 

74 



Meindert Hobbema 

in great demand among collectors, and no doubt 
Vandyck, for his aristocratic connexions at the 
Enghsh Court ; but I doubt if Rembrandt woukl 
have been unrler R, and I am certain that you 
would have looked in vain under H for one Mein- 
dert Hobbema. Because Meindert Hobbema ceased 
earlier than most to be a painter, and during his 
painting years was hardly known at all by the public, 
although he had many friends amongst artists. 

So far as the records go, he was bom at Amster- 
dam or Koeverden (or even Middelliarnis) in 16S8, 
at a time when England was excited by the case of 
John Hampden and the ship money, and when a 
famous physician named Thomas Browne, who is one 
of the glories of this city, was thirty-three. 

It is conjectured that Hobbema's iSrst master was 
Salomon Ruysdael, uncle of the more famous Jacob 
and himself a fine landscape painter. Salomon's 
exact dates are as elusive as those of most of his 
artist contemporaries ; but we may take it that by 
1655, when Hobbema would be fifteen, the master 
was approaching his sixtieth year, while his nephew 
Jacob was then a young man in the middle twenties. 

Salomon was true to Haarlem, that pleasant 
Dutch city whose vast church rises like a mammoth 
from the plain in so many of Jacob's pictures, and 
we may suppose that Hobbema lived there too 
during his pupilage. Most probably he passed from 
Salomon to Jacob. It is known at any rate that 
Jacob was both a friend and an influence. 

75 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

Hobbema could not have had a better friend, for 
Ruysdael, as henceforward Jacob sliall be called 
(his uncle Salomon now receding to the background), 
was a man of great kindness of heart and fidelity, 
and we may be certain that he followed painting 
with a passionate devotion, although when quite a 
boy he is said to have wished to be a doctor and 
even to have spent some time in medical studies. 
And here a comparison with Crome is suggested, al- 
though to set it up would be going too far; yet the 
fact remains that two years of Crome's boyhood were 
given to running errands for Dr. Rigby of Norwich, 
and during this period he was sufficiently advanced 
on the road at any rate towards empiricism as to 
amuse himself by changing the labels on the 
medicine bottles, very much as Mr. Bob Sawyer's 
boy might have done; but once, it is known, he had 
(in the doctor's absence) enough courage and address 
to bleed a patient almost to death. 

It is probable that Ruysdael was taught by his 
uncle, before medical ambition took him, but AUart 
van Everdingen, who was glibly called " The Salvator 
Rosa of the North," is said also to have been his 
master. Everdingen had had the advantage, very 
unusual with Dutch artists, of being sliipwrecked on 
the coast of Norway, and while in that land he had 
seen and admired such waterfalls as liis pupil 
Ruysdael (whose name oddly enough signifies foam- 
ing water) was to become so famous for depicting. 

Such, then, was Ruysdael and his early career. 

76 



Dutch Influences 

Before continuing the brief outline — all we 
can discover — of Hobbema's life, let us for a 
moment return to the engaging subject, started a 
little while back, of the relationship of artist to 
artist. We first heard our own Crome exclaiming, 
"Hobbema, my dear Hobbema!" We have now 
seen Hobbema in Salomon Ruysdael's painting- 
room; just as, years earlier, Salomon himself had 
studied in the painting-room of Jan van Goyen, 
whose golden placid seas and golden serene rivers 
light up so graciously whatever rooms they occupy. 

Now, that Norfolk gentleman and Crome's patron 
whose name cannot be too deeply carved on a 
cornice of the House of Art, Thomas Harvey of 
Catton, had an example not only of Hobbema but of 
Van Goyen for the young sign-painter to copy and 
adore. And though the glory that is Crome would, 
as I hold, always have been the glory that is Crome, 
yet there is no harm in believing that he would 
not have paid quite such loving attention to the 
trunk and foliage of the Poringland oak but for 
Hobbema, or have bathed Mousehold Heath in 
quite such a lovely aureous light but for Van Goyen. 

Let me add that in the list of that sale of Crome's 
possessions which was held at Norwich in September 
IS'^l are a Hobbema, a Ruysdael, a Van Gt)yen, a 
Van de Velde, and a Cuyp ; but since the Hobbema 
fetclied only thirty-six shillings and the Van Goyen 
only five guineas, it is conjectured that they were 
not the originals but probably Crome's early copies. 

77 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

To-day, however, what would not some of us give 
to have the chance of buying even those ? 

One more allusion to the associated elements of 
the House of Art before Hobbema again claims us. 

In the National Gallery is an example of his master 
Salomon which, in Sir Edward Cook's catalogue, 
has only one quoted reference to it. But how do you 
think that reference runs ? It is from a writer in 
the Quarterly Review, who finds in it "a peculiarly 
sharp, clear, and firm touch, very like that of Stark." 
Now Salomon, in the seventeenth century, taught 
Hobbema, who was Crome's darling ; and James 
Stark of Norwich was articled to John Crome of the 
same city in 1811, for three years, to be instructed 
in the art and mystery of painting English landscape. 
When I add that, in Mr. Binyon's phrase, the truth 
of which you may easily prove by a visit to the 
Castle Gallery and by certain of the examples in 
this house, "Stark was more faithful to Hobbema 
than Crome was," you will see in what labyrinths 
the students of derivatives in art are liable to find 
themselves. 

Supposing that Hobbema began to paint inde- 
pendently at the age of twenty, we will put 1658 
as the year of his emancipation. Ruysdael, who by 
this time was probably his principal companion, was 
then nearing thirty, and it may be that they moved 
to Amsterdam together about tliat time. Ruysdael 
was to make tliat city his headquarters until 1(181, 
Hobbema for ever. From Amsterdam they had of 

78 



Holland's Celebrants 

course to make journeys in search of their own 
delectable scenery. Hobbema's subjects were drawn 
chiefly from Gelderland, wliere trees abound, and 
where Ruysdael must often have gone too, judging 
by the similarity of certain of their pictures. 

Ruysdael is credited also with more extended 
travels, as far south as Italy and as far north as 
Scandinavia, but nothing is known for certain, 
save that many of his landscapes are not Dutch. 
Who, however, shall say that he did not find many 
of them in the mind's eye — a source of inspiration 
which even the most realistic painters have not 
at times disdained .^ But a study of Hobbema's 
work — and at the National Gallery there are eight 
examples for the student — leads one to the belief 
that he painted only what he saw. 

A concise comparison between the two friends 
would call Ruysdael the more poetical, Hobbema 
the more natural. Between them they accounted 
for most of the moods of the skies, the water, and 
the soil of their beloved Holland. 

One feels in the presence of all Hobbema's work 
that he kept closely to the fact. Whatever he 
painted, surely was like that, we say. And we can 
derive the broad facts of his character as we stand 
before it. A plain, straightforward man, fond of 
clarity, simplicity, and the familiar; unambitious; 
not too gay, although not seriously discontented; 
expecting little of life. Such we may safely infer 
from his very similar canvases painted so carefully 

79 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

but without joy, always under similar atmospheric 
conditions. 

We miss alike the variety, the strength and 
experimentalism of Ruysdael and the benignancy 
and full-bloodedness of Crome. But how exquisite 
is Hobbema's work and how minute his enjoyment 
in Nature ! His love of trees, and particularly the 
oak, amounted to a passion. He rejoiced in foliage, 
never abashed by difficulties of translating it into 
paint, with real light and air amid the branches ; 
but rather indeed seeking them. For the most part, 
as the National Gallery examples, which are good 
and typical, tell, he chose the glade, with a cottage 
here, a water-mill there, and the million leaves over 
all. And looking at these pictures, we can hear 
Hobbema saying of the murmuring wood, " This is 
my Academy" just as Crome said it of the river 
bank, as he and his pupils were sitting one day at 
their work beside the Yare. 

The National Gallery is peculiarly fortunate in 
possessing, beyond the reach of transatlantic envy 
and riches, Hobbema's strangely fascinating and 
very different picture, "The Avenue at Middel- 
harnis" — Middelharnis being one of the towns 
which claim the artist as a son. It is Hobbema's 
simplest scene, and I have far more confidence in 
saying that it is his best than I have in agreeing 
with Mr. Theobald and other critics in their sweep- 
ing appraisement of the "Poringland Oak" as 
Crome 's best. 

80 



"The Avenue at Middelharnis" 

"The Avenue at Middelharnis " stands alone. 
No other Hobbema has such character. I wish I 
had a screen on which to throw a photograph of it, 
to bring it to your thoughts more vividly ; for it is 
one of those pictures that photography cannot much 
harm, the colour of it being subservient to feeling. 
On the other hand, it is also one of the most easily 
remembered pictures in the world, so that probably 
while I am now speaking you are all reconstructing in 
your minds the lopped trees, the far-away church 
with its bulbous spire, the gardener pruning in the 
right foreground, and the sportsman with his dog in 
the middle distance — these last being perhaps the 
work of a figure painter called in for the purpose. 
But it is not they that matter. What matters is the 
landscape and the truth with which earth and sky 
have been painted by this sincere soul. 

The partially illegible date may be 1669 and it 
may be 1689. My own guess is that it is 1669 ; 
but whether painted then or many years later, it is 
Hobbema's last dated work, for a reason to which 
we shall soon come. 

These pictures are on one end wall of Room IX in 
the National Gallery. The opposite wall is given 
chiefly to Ruysdael and one of the side walls to 
Albert Cuyp, and the interesting thing is that it is 
not Hobbema and not Ruysdael but Cuyp who stays 
in our mind in association with the works of John 
Crome when we move on to Room XXI, where they 
are gathered. Hobbema was his dear Hobbema, 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

and the Poringland oak, as I have said, perhaps 
would not have been quite the tree it is but for 
Hobbema's genius ; yet in standing before the 
National Gallery Cromes it is Cuyp of whom we 
think most. 

Mention of the Middelharnis gardener and sports- 
man reminds me that Ruysdael and Hobbema had 
yet another point in common beyond their love of 
Nature and their love of Holland and their truth 
and patience. They both employed the services of 
the same figure painters when it chanced that the 
picture needed a human element beyond their own 
capacity to render. This outside assistance was of 
course often enough called in by artists of every 
period, but more perhaps by the Dutch than by any ; 
for it was peculiarly in the Dutch character to 
specialize — Hobbema, for example, in foliage ; and 
Ruysdael in great prospects and waterfalls ; and the 
superb and joyous Van der Heyden in street fagades. 
Hence all of them, now and then, were glad of help 
with their peasants and passers-by. And whether 
or not Hobbema could find purchasers, he could 
always find the highest form of such help ; which, 
as Bryan points out, is an indication that, no matter 
how collectors viewed him, he was held in high 
esteem by liis fellow-craftsmen. 

Both he and Ruysdael had recourse chiefly to 
Nicholas Berchem, Wouwermans, and Adrian van 
der Velde. 

Berchem, who was Ruysdael's closest friend and 
82 



Three Figure Painters 

a pupil of Van Goyen, is famous for his serene 
scenes of peasants and cattle : such goats as 
frolic in fairyland and such ruins in the back- 
ground as never were anywhere but in his happy 
mind. 

Philip Wouwermans, who was also of Haarlem, is 
known chiefly by his battle pictures, always with a 
white horse in them, that animal being as dear to 
him as a spot of red was to Corot. If we may 
believe the ascriptions of his works scattered all 
over Europe, this country, and doubtless America 
too, Wouwermans painted more industriously than 
almost anyone in a profession notorious for produc- 
tivity. 

The third assistant, Adrian van der Velde, a 
pupil of Wouwermans, was a very charming painter 
of landscape and rural scenes, but a large part of his 
time was given to figure painting for others. In 
particular he is said to have humanized the urban 
paradises of Van der Hey den. 

Of all these men, who did for Hobbema, on 
occasion, what Michael Sharp and William Shayer 
did for Crome, examples are to be seen in our 
National Gallery and at Hertford House, and if 
these words of mine have the effect of sending any 
of you to those collections on your next visit to 
London, I shall be well repaid ; for it is the chief 
ambition of the lover of pictures, and sometimes his 
reward, to make two persons enter the National 
Gallery where only one entered before. 

83 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

A word as to Crome's allies in making his pictures 
more human or animated. Michael Sharp was a 
painter of portraits and figure subjects who, like 
Crome, but more regularly so, was a pupil of 
Beechey. It was he who put in the bathers in the 
"Poringland Oak," three of the boys being young 
Cromes, and the other the son of a Norwich mail- 
cart driver name Aldous. One of the Crome boys 
in the picture — the little fat naked one, I believe 
— was named after Sharp himself, Michael Sharp 
Crome, and he afterwards became a successful 
dancing-master in this town. Sharp died at 
Boidogne in 18J-0, 

Crome had recourse now and then also to 
William Shayer, a yomig cattle painter, who intro- 
duced the cows in the picture of Chapel Fields in the 
National Gallery. Of Shayer I know nothing save 
that Crome named no dancing-master after him and 
he lived to a very great age, dying in 1879. The 
cattle in the great "Mousehold Heath" picture 
had nothing to do with Crome at all, but were added 
after his death by an unknown hand. 

Returning now to Hobbema once more, we come 
upon disaster. Hobbema married in 1668. He was 
then thirty and his wife thirty -four ; and his best 
man was his friend Ruysdael, who through life re- 
mained a baclielor. Note the year of the marriage 
— 1668 — and remember what was said just now 
about the date of "The Avenue at Middelharnis." 
The tragedy is that whether tliat picture's date is 

84 



Excisemen of Genius 

1669 or 1689, it was Hobbenia's only work of art 
after his marriage. 

Whatever of happiness Hobbema's union with 
Mrs. Hobbema may have brought him, it was the 
end for us ; for his wife, who had been a domestic 
servant in the family of the Burgomaster of 
Amsterdam, chancing to be acquainted with a 
woman of influence, used that acquaintanceship so 
adroitly that her husband was appointed at once to 
a post under the wine customs. This brought in 
enough to live upon, and was no doubt a more 
dependable business than that of painting sunlight 
through trees, however wonderfully. In times of 
stress landscapes are the first things we cut off; 
whatever happens, whether of good or ill, men must 
have wine. 

How many geniuses have been connected with the 
excise I have not inquired; but it is interesting to 
find the rural painter Hobbema and the peasant 
poet Burns together in that galley. Hobbema, 
however, differed from Robbie in having to pay 
for his position. The influential friend of his wife 
was rewarded by an annual grant from the artist of 
"■150 florins, to be paid until she, through marriage, 
could afford to do without it. The deed still exists. 

I said a little while back that the name of 
Thomas Harvey of Catton, the intermediary between 
Hobbema and Crome. should be engraved on a 
cornice of the House of Art. What then should 
be done with Mrs. Hobbema ? Let us hope that 

85 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

she brought her husband many compensations for 
the divme fire which she had taken from him. 
Whatever excellence he may have attained as an 
exciseman, we can only exclaim, in Mr. Dobson's 
phrase in one of his fables, "But O the artist that 
was lost!" And yet if "The Avenue at Middel- 
harnis" — his best picture, as I believe — is the only 
one painted after Mrs. Hobbema began her reign, 
as is stated in the memoirs, then perhaps after all 
she should have her golden letters too, for it may 
be that the difference in quality — the beautiful 
melancholy of it — is due in some subtle way to 
her alienation of her husband from his chosen path; 
and thus everything came out right. A wise 
fatalism would lead us to that conclusion ; for only 
by the steps of the journey, whether joyously 
springy or painful, can the goal be reached. 

Since Hobbema was only thirty when he married, 
it is to his wife's commercial instinct that must 
be attributed the chief cause of the scarcity of 
his pictures. Compared with that of most of the 
greatest Dutch painters — always excepting such 
notably rare masters as, for example. Vernier of 
Delft, Fabritius, and Seghers — Hobbema's output 
was small, and until recently nine-tenths of his 
paintings were in England. To-day I fear that this 
proportion has decreased, for there is a work of art 
which latterl\' has become more precious to the 
English collector than any study of Dutch oaks or 
water-mills, and that is an American cheque. 
86 



Prudent Dealers 

But there are two other reasons for Hobbema's 
rarity. One is that he was probably minutely 
laborious in his methods (although that, it is true, 
applies to many of his more fruitful contemporaries), 
and therefore painted slowly and not overmuch; 
the other, that he was never in any demand, nor 
did he become pyopular till comparatively recently, 
so that not only were his living faculties discouraged, 
but those posthumous activities so urgent in the 
case of more desired artists have had little play. 
Corot, for example, has painted far more since 
his death than ever he ditl before it. 

So little indeed was Hobbema in demand, that 
for a considerable time all prudent dealers who 
chanced to have any of his works on their hands 
were careful to put Jacob Ruysdael's signature to 
them, knowing that only thus was a purchaser likely 
to be found. The action was no doubt immoral — 
according, at any rate, to the standards of those of 
us who are not picture dealers — but I think that it 
had some justification in the extraordinary pleasure 
it would have given to Hobbema, could he have 
glimpsed the rascals at it through the loopholes of 
heaven. For I am sure his feeling for Ruysdael 
was so near idolatry that he was capable of being 
flattered by the false ascription. 

Little other information concerning Hobbema can 
be gathered, save the fact that he had one son and 
two daughters, of whom, however, nothing is known ; 
and that he fell upon poverty. Van Goyen had died 

87 



Old Crome's Hobbema 

in 1666; Salomon Ruysdael in 1670. In 1681 
Jacob Ruysdael, being taken ill, left Amsterdam for 
Haarlem, where he died in 1682. Hobbema lived 
on, in a house just outside Amsterdam, on the south 
side of the Rosengracht, opposite that one from 
which, in 1669, Rembrandt's body had been carried 
to the grave. 

All we know for certain of these later years is 
that both Hobbema and his wife had pauper funerals. 
His own was on December lljth, 1709. 

Two centuries later one of his pictures fetched 
eight thousand guineas at Christie's. 



88 



Persons of Quality ^^ <:::> <^ ^riy 
I. — Mr. Frank, of Bologna 

BOLOGNA'S greatest pride is, I suppose, Guido 
Reni; but he would not be my choice. Nor 
would Giulio Romano, or the mild Francia, or 
Giovanni of Bologna, who made the Neptune 
fountain, and whom Landor told Emerson he pre- 
ferred to Michael Angelo ; although he did not, I 
think, quite mean it. (We say odd things to 
Amercians, just for fun, sometimes.) I should name 
Mr. Frank, for many reasons, such as (a) Mr. Frank 
is alive, and (6) Mr. Frank befriends the friendless 
and houses the homeless, and (c) Mr. Frank is an 
arboriculturist, and (d) Mr. Frank loves the English 
soil and most of the things that it produces. 

Mr. Frank is seventy : spare, alert, vigorous. 
His nationality is probably German Swiss ; he is 
one of those strange people whose peculiar destiny 
it is to set roofs over English and American 
travellers ; provide meals to nourish them and beds 
to rest them ; and (the next day) to place before 

89 



Persons of Quality 

them reminders that this, after all, is not Arcadia. 
VJr. Frank, being true to his blood, keeps an hotel, 
but it is unique among hotels in being a converted 
palazzo of the fifteenth century : spacious, splendid, 
quiet, and efficient — the Hotel Brun, in fact. 

But let no one think that in calling Mr. Frank 
an innkeeper he has been summed up. For he is 
more. Now and again, as one ranges this little 
planet, one meets with an innkeeper who is also a 
man, a brother, and even something beyond. There 
is one at Brighton, and Mr. Frank is another. Just 
as the city of Bologna differs from all other cities in 
being built upon colonnades of arches, so that you 
may walk almost uninterruptedly under cover for 
miles, and just as the Hotel Brun differs from all 
other hotels in its origin and aristocratic bland self- 
possession, so does Mr. Frank differ from all other 
hotel proprietors in possessing a hillside villa, sur- 
rounded by vineyards, whither it is his delight to 
lead chosen guests, and also in having written a 
slender Guide to his adopted city, where he has been, 
since 1868, with naturally a reference or so to the 
Hotel Brun in it, but no paltry mercenary emphasis 
at all : just these two modest sentences at the 
close — "Very often visitors say that, if they knew 
how interesting Bologna was, tliey would have 
arranged for a longer stay. May this little Guide 
tend to make Bologna better known!'* 

Mr. Frank not only keeps the Brun, but is a 
famous vintner, and exports wine to England, and it 
90 



The Figs 

was in the wine season that I met him. "Would 
you hke," he said, falling with his English and his 
friendliness out of a clear sky into an alien world of 
waiters, "to see them picking grapes on the hill? 
It is only a few minutes distant." Of course; and 
off we started at nine in the morning along the 
Piazza Malpighi, past S. Francesco, with the green 
tombs of the Glossatori on pillars outside it, into 
the Via Sant' Isaia to the boulevard, and then up a 
steep and narrow road, past one villa after another, 
until we turned in at the hospitable gate. The sun 
was already powerful, lizards were darting like 
shadows over the walls, and Bologna's red roofs 
below were beginning to smoulder. 

Mr. Frank had been topographer and historian on 
the way up; once inside his grounds he became a 
botanist and an arboriculturist. He led us from 
flower to flower, from tree to tree, including, I am 
happy to say, the best of all, the jicus aurea (to 
adopt his own learned tongue at this stage), into 
which he sent an ancient blue-linened gardener, 
with a neck of that crocodile-skin consistency and 
pattern which the Italian peasants so often possess, 
to pick a basket of "honey drops," as these little 
yellow figs are called, and these he divided into four 
with great dexterity and neatness with his knife, 
one after the other, until we had learned to do it 
ourselves. And so we passed through the vineyards, 
where the peasants were piling purple grapes and 
green into barrels, some day to warm the heart as 

91 



Persons of Quality 

Sangiovese and Cabernet, Trebbiano and Sauvignon, 
to the villa itself, which was as comfortable as any 
house could be asked to be, and had the added 
attraction of two round-eyed grandchildren in the 
midst of dolls and Teddy bears. 

Beside it were dark walks of clipped box, fragrant 
with that box-leaf scent, the same everywhere, 
which carries the mind so quickly to other haunts 
and reminds me always of the chalet above Burford 
Bridge, and here and there a statue or terminal 
figure, and everywhere a sentinel cypress looking 
on, and at one place the opening to a subterranean 
passage a hundred yards long ; and above the villa, 
always climbing, greater trees, such as the Scotch 
fir ; and more vineyards, where we ate grapes of all 
denominations, and found the muscatel the most 
alluring ; and a cattle-shed containing two of the 
great, white, placid cows of Lombardy ; and so to a 
chestnut grove where classical poetry must surely 
have been written, with purple colchicums and 
cyclamen in the grass. And all the while Mr. 
Frank had never ceased to touch lovingly this trunk 
and that, recalling the year in which he had planted 
them, or some other association ; describing the joy 
of the spring on this hillside, its birds and song ; 
or asking for particulars concerning the growth of 
certain flowers in England. All collectors who love 
their possessions tenderly are good company; but 
a collector of trees and flowers in a foreign country 
is peculiarly interesting, especially when he has for 
92 



George Morrow 

their well-being so watchful an eye and instant a 
hand. 

Mr. Frank says at the beginning of his little Guide 
that the visitor to Bologna will find "its thrifty 
citizens courteous and obliging, and will go away 
impressed with the vigour of the men of Bologna 
and the comely dignity of her women, even those 
of the lower classes." That is true. And if the 
visitor has luck, he can go away impressed also with 
the gentle charm and profound love of Nature of an 
innkeeper in ten thousand. 



II. — George Morrow ^ 

It is George Morrow's special gift to pencil his 
comments on the margin of life. The soul of 
modesty, his route is essentially the by-way. The 
high road is for others : for Mr. Partridge and Mr. 
Raven Hill, both concerned with politics, English and 
foreign, international complications, and the other 
grave matters upon which we look to Punch for a 
weekly criticism ; for Mr. Townsend and Mr. Gunning 
King, who delineate the straightforward humours of 
domestic experience. Mr. Morrow's game is liumbler 

^ The illustrations to this essay — and I wish there were 
twice as manj^ — are reproduced by the kind permission of 
the proprietors of Punch. 

93 



Persons of Quality 

and more idiosyncratic — the record of his own quaint 
ruminations. Whatever happens, he has his thoughts, 
and no one else has thoughts at all resembling them. 
He is probably the most consistently original comic 
draughtsman now working. Caran d'Ache was 
technically more brilliant and more carelessly witty; 







THE LITTLE WORRIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

A knight overhauling his stock of doubtful coins prior lo a 
distribution of : 



and Caran d'Ache was as certainly George Morrow's 
predecessor as Wilhelm Busch was Caran d'Ache's. 
But no one who knows Morrow's work would for a 
moment suggest that he is derivative, except now 
and then in external form. His orginality is incor- 
ruptible : I never met anyone who more detested 
imitation and "conveyance." Even if a suggestion 
94 



A Comic Individualist 

is given to him, the treatment is his own : that is to 
say, the idea is enriched by the play of the artist's 
personality. But only one or two per cent, of his 
drawings owe, I believe, anything to outside hints : 
the rest are the result of their creator's sidelong 
humour unaided. Caran d'Ache not only made the 
pictorial sequence peculiarly his own, but founded 




TOURISTS LISTENING TO THE SOUND OF MULL 



upon history some very pleasant jeux d' esprit; yet 
between him and Mr. Morrow there is no real 
similarity. The witty, dashing bravado of the 
Frenchman is one thing, and the quaint, ruminative 
subtleties of our Irishman are another; while both 
contribute radiance to the slender band of great 
comic outlinists. 

George Morrow has this quality in common with 
Caran d'Ache : he scamps nothing and forgets 
95 



Persons of Quality 

nothing. Every part of the i)ictuie, however 
crowded it may be, has had consideration. It is 
this minute thoughtfiilness which makes his work so 
rich, for one is continually coming upon new details 
of fun or mischief, overlooked before. The com- 




JULIUS CAESAR INTERVIEWING BARBARIAN CAPTIVES ON 

THE SUBJECT OF THE CURE AND PREVENTION 

OF BALDNESS 



inonest charge that is brought against many of our 
comic draughtsmen is that their drawings are "so 
soon over." It could never be urged against George 
Morrow, whose backgrounds work for their living 
too. This stealthily accumulative sense of the 
ridiculous is very rare. 

96 



An Old Joke Made New 

I have said that Mr. Morrow does not illustrate 
what are called "social subjects." Not that he is 
insensitive to the humours of normal everyday life 
(far from it !) ; but their translation into black and 
white is not his first mStier. The fanciful and 
grotesque are nearer his heart. Nevertheless, I have 
always thought the legend beneath his Punch draw- 
ing of the poor woman and the wag one of the 
classic contributions to that paper. The words, I 
may remark, are the artist's own. The wife of the 
unemployed says, *'My 'usband finds it very 'ard — 
very 'ard indeed, sir — to get any work at his trade." 
"I suppose," replies the facetious gentleman (getting 
off an old joke), "I suppose he's a snow shoveller." 
"Indeed no," says the woman. "No such luck, sir. 
'E's only a snow shoveller's labourer." 

One of Mr. Morrow's art editors once said — not in 
any spirit of complaint, but merely as a curious fact 
— that all the people in his drawings are idiots. 
The criticism may go too far, but it is illuminative 
too, for it suggests the world of busy simpletons in 
which this artist's pencil has its being. He has 
created a universe of fussy foolishness and petty 
importance. He is the Mantegna of Gotham. 

But even more do I value his work as a historian. 
It would seem to be the peculiar province of Irish 
humorists to show us the unfamiliar side. Oscar 
Wilde did it again and again : a trick of inverting 
truth was signally his. Mr. Shaw is continually 
startling us by the persuasiveness with which he pre- 
H 97 



Persons of Quality 

sents the case of the minority. Mr. Morrow illumines 
the unexpected too, and not only the unexpected 
but that variety of the unexpected which we our- 
selves had never thought about. As one example 
take his drawing of the mediaeval lord who is about 
to distribute largesse to the crowd. No one else 




TOUCHING FILIAL PIETY OF ROMULUS AS SHOWN IN HIS 
TREATMENT OF HIS FOSTER-MOTHER 



commissioned to execute this scene would have 
remembered that mediaeval lords probably performed 
such duties very reluctantly, and first, assisted by 
their prudent ladies, went through their coffers for 
coins of doubtful integrity — to get rid of those first. 
Yet how natural — when you do think of it ! 

98 



Comic Historians 

In looking at these historical and biographical 
episodes, the curious thing that strikes one is that 
so much had been left for Mr. Morrow to think of. 
Consider, for example, how many funny men have 
been at work on the humours of history — from 
Gilbert a Beckett and his illustrator down to the 
entertaining hand that depicted the Cork Lino 
drolleries of a few years ago. And remembering 
the many obvious jokes, look again at Mr. Morrow's 
drawing of a little supper party at the Borgias'. It 
is astonishing that this was waiting for him; and 
yet not astonishing at all. Here one sees at once a 
new and subtler treatment : the external humour 
has been supplemented by a rush of absurdity, and 
psychology has been added. For Mr. Morrow is 
always a psychologist : he is always interested, not 
only in the joke, but in its dramatis personse. There 
is a double impact : on you, the reader, and on 
them, the participants. 

Take, again, the picture of Romulus and Remus. 
One would have thought that every joke possible 
about those brothers had been made fifty years ago. 
But it was left for George Morrow to depict one 
more perfectly natural yet perfectly absurd episode 
in their career : the two brothers piously taking 
their foster-mother for a ride in a Bath chair. In 
the same manner is his scene from the life of Julius 
Caesar. Given the subject, to find a novel humorous 
treatment of Julius Csesar, how many comic draughts- 
men in the history of black-and-white would have 

99 



Persons of Quality 

hit on anything so amusing or quaint as George 
Morrow's picture of the bald Emperor interviewing 
three hairy barbarian captives as to how they 
managed to get such a growth ! And having suffi- 
ciently enjoyed this scene, who would believe that a 
further and equally diverting variation on the theme 
of Caesar's baldness was still possible ? Yet after an 



f: 








A LITTLE SUPPER AT THE BORGIAS' 



interval of a few years we had from the same pencil 
the picture of the loyal but misguided Roman who had 
presented his Emperor with his bust tactlessly con- 
structed from an ostrich egg. In the misgivings of 
the artist, suddenly beginning to be aware of his 
blmider (yet the artist all the time), and the conflict 
in the Emperor's mind as he analyses for motives to 
decide between deliberate insult or thoughtless zeal, 
lOO 



The Pea-Farm 

the full flavour of Morrow's curious humour may be 
found. For it is his special gift to inveut asses and 
then be rather sorry for them. But they must be 
exploited first. 

The peculiar charm of these drawings is that not 




■•?j^.^^ 



GROWING PEAS FOR POLICE- WHISTLES AT THE 
WORMWOOD SCRUBS PEA-FARM 



only are they exceedingly^ funny, both in the gross 
and in detail, every expression being separately 
imagined by the artist, but they are also within the 
bounds of possibility, if not probability. It is normal 
humour all the time. Such a simple, although 
superficially comic, device as inverted chronology our 
artist disdains : he would never, for example, put 

lOI 



Persons of Quality 

an ancient into a motor-car, or bring William the 
Conqueror to England in a steamer, which was, I 
remember, one of the great jokes of the comic 
historian O. P. Q. Philander Smith. His method is 
subtler and truer, as, for example, when he shows 
his centaur harnessed to a chariot to represent an 
early cab, and the centaur (described as the 
"primeval extortionist") looking at a coin in his 
hand which his fare has just given him, and asking, 
'"Ere, wot's this?" That had to be thought of by 
some one, but George Morrow alone could think of 
it. The drawing might stand as a symbol of his 
reconciling humour, which fuses the past and the 
present, proves that we were always as absurd as 
now, and bridges the ages with laughter. 



III. — Wish Wynne i 

Wish Wynne is a new music-hall singer; and not 
only a new singer, but a new variety of singer. She 
is quiet, humane, understanding ; she is out to 

1 Since this essay in appreciation was written, in 1912, the 
lady has gone on the stage proper, and, as I correct these proofs, 
is delighting audiences in Mr. Bennett's "Great Adventure." 
But I want to see her in the halls again. Those she lifts. 
And since she herself writes all the words of her songs and 
sketches, and another could — although, I admit, not half so 
well — speak Mr. Bennett's lines, the loss is great. 

I02 



Wish Wynne 

destroy nothing; she can do without laughter; she 
can do without an orchestra or Kmelight, if need be. 
She has truth and restraint on her side, and some- 
thing more : she has sympathy, and insists on adding 
yours to it. She is without vanity, and in her own 
person, when not singing a character-song, might 
even disappoint, for her assurance is by no means 
perfect until she believes herself to be some one 
else. Her voice also is hardly up to a song pure and 
simple, being better suited for a semi-recitative; it 
has a faint American echo, although she seems to be 
English otherwise. 

But such defects matter nothing. Many a fine 
artist has had to forget self and impersonate 
another before acquiring power, and Wish Wynne 
is among them. Directly she assumes the guise of 
a downtrodden London girl everything changes. 
No more indecisions; the character is as clear and 
firm as an etching. These are her special forte : 
little London girls, with a knowledge of life and a 
capacity for enjoyment, whose destiny it is to be 
misunderstood and put upon. It is a common type, 
and Wish Wynne makes it extraordinarily real. 
You remember her half-tones after all the stridencies 
of the evening are happily lost. 

Listening to Wish Wynne (what a clever name !), 
you realize that at last the halls have an artist 
again. She is not like anyone else, nor has she had 
a predecessor. Into this atmosphere of coarseness 
and furtive laughter she brings a clean humour, with 
103 



Persons of Quality 

a leaven of pathos all her own. There have been 
slaveys on the music-hall stage time and again. 
Jenny Hill loved the type, and made it voluble and 
caustic; her daughter, Peggy Prj^de, recaptured 
some of her vitality; while there was the astonish- 
ing Ada Lundberg, some twenty years ago, with a 
blacking-brush in one hand and a boot in the other, 
telling of the calamities that follow upon walking 
with a soldier. But these saw only the comic or 
sordid side of the slavey's life — or, to be more exact, 
comic and sordid, the blend that best produces 
music-hall laughter to-day : the side, in short, that 
the audience expected. Wish Wynne is different. 
She gives the audience not what they expect, and 
not, perhaps, wholly what they want, judging by the 
laughter that early in her songs one hears before a 
sentence is finished, prompted by the hope that it is 
to take a different and more conventional turn ; yet 
once the silly creatures understand that here is a 
performer whose every word is of value and none 
has two meanings their attention is complete. No 
comic singer gets such rapt audiences. 

In one of her songs she is the little slavey who 
believes that all her mistresses are against her. She 
passes them in review, and dismisses them as hope- 
less, one after the other, in a chorus beginning, 
''But 'er ! Oh, 'er!" This is exact: there is not a 
false touch; and though it is frankly humorous, the 
singer gives it just that little addition of character — 
wistfulness and the comic critical spirit of the 
104 



A Surprise for the Halls 

Londoner mixed — which lifts it to a creation. 
Many singers could make an audience laugh with 
the same words; Wish Wynne alone could touch 
them too. In another song she is a child of a mean 
street, always in hot water with her mother and 
father, the victim of iron circumstance. But she has 
a consolation — the reflection, "No matter, they'll be 
sorry when I'm dead." Another song shows a very 
similar type whose particular cross is a playmate, Elsie 
Evelyn Martin. Elsie is spiteful and treacherous. 
Wish has "pinched" an apple; Elsie Evelyn begs 
her to "pinch" another for her, and, being refused, 
tells Wish's mother of the theft. The result is that 
the girl who is singing her woes has been forbidden 
to go to the Bible class : a peculiarly hard misfortune, 
since not only has she got by heart her hymn, her 
chapter of St. John, and her prayer, but close to the 
church is a lovely shop "where you can pinch 'em 
fine." Now, here is totally new ground being broken 
in music-halls. Before Wish a slum schoolgirl on the 
boards had sung only about what she saw through 
the keyhole when her big sister and her young man 
were together, and so forth. Nothing else was asked 
of her. Wish Wynne repulses such seaminess and 
gives us instead a little comedy of the soul. 

One other departure has she made. She sings, as 
a country girl, a song about her young man. Now 
one knows what to expect when the "comedienne" 
or "soubrette" or "serio" offers this theme: 
probably the young man is a swindler and makes 

105 



Persons of Quality 

off with her savings; ahnost certainly he is faithless. 
But Wish Wynne's lover is very plain (although she 
has "seen lads as ugly as he"), and she is in some 
doubt as to whether she really loves him enough, 
and her father and mother and friends are all against 
the marriage. She recognizes their practical wisdom, 
and yet — "I dunno." Each verse ends in this shy, 
affectionate dubiety. She even has decided to give 
him up, and then she looks at his faithful red hair 
and freckles and thinks of how kind he has been to 
her; and — "Well, I dunno." Now, here is more 
new ground ; and though one does not want the 
halls to be visited by an inundation of sentimentality 
(as in this imitative profession is only too likely), 
yet when it is provided by such a true artist as 
this unobtrusive new singer we can be very glad to 
meet with it. 



IV. — Masters, New and Old 

The most remarkable thing about championship 
billiards — after the wizardry of it — is the gulf that 
divides the handful of best men from the handful of 
next best men, and the gulf that divides that second 
handful from every one else. In all other games you 
can count the absolutely first-class men by scores. 
I do not mean that there is not one a shade better 
io6 



Kings of Ivory 

than the others, because there is : otherwise there 
would be no champion; but the throne is surrounded 
by claimants entitled to stand on the top step of the 
dais. W. G. Grace, for example, was for a long time 
beyond all question the best cricketer; but other 
men occasionally had better seasons, and quite 
inferior players could bowl him out and defy his 
bowling. Mr. John Ball junior was the amateur 
golf champion, yet England and Scotland are 
sprinkled with men who can give him a stiff game, 
and he has been beaten, I suppose, on many links. 

But in billiards it is a case of the best first and 
the rest almost nowhere; and at the present moment, 
among the continually active players, the best are 
only five in number : Stevenson, Inman, Reece, 
Diggle, and Aiken. I omit John Roberts, because 
not only is he old and ill but for years he has stood 
apart in aristocratic aloofness ; I omit Peall and 
Dawson because they have retired, and Gray because 
he is a specialist. 

Then comes the first gulf, on the hither (or our) 
side of which are Harverson and Smith and Cook 
and Newman and young Peall, for example. 

And then comes the second gulf, and after that 
we need not trouble very much, for there is no magic 
left — ■ nothing but merit and accomplishment ; and 
so downwards to our own blundering efforts to get 
a decent spirit of obedience and good conduct into 
ivory, or even bonzoline. 

It is only those that know something of what ivory 
107 



Persons of Quality 

can do and should do under coaxing or compulsion 
who can really appreciate the wizardry of the best 
players. Because it realh^ is wizardry — nothing 
else; and not the less so through one's knowledge 
that it has come from a whole lifetime of practice 
and thought. For he who would play billiards like 
one of these must do nothing else. Billiards must 
be his existence. A good game can be played 
by men immersed at other times in other pursuits ; 
but wizardry goes only to those who not only start 
with a natural aptitude, in a billiards environment, 
but dedicate their bodies and minds to billiards as 
completely and thoughtfully as a devotee of religion. 
To know what to do and to do it accurately and 
beautifully; to know not only what one is doing 
with this stroke, but precisely what kind of position 
will be left ; to alternate a softness of touch beside 
which the touch of a butterfly's wing were almost 
gross with a forcing power that would drive a nail 
through a plank ; to break the balls after a series of 
nurseries with such precision of effort that they 
reassemble within an inch after a tour of the table 
by one of them ; and to keep up these clianging 
tactics, without intervals either for consideration 
or rest, during breaks of two, three, four, five, and 
six hundred — only by lifelong devotion can these 
marvels be accomplished. 

Meeting Stevenson casually one would never 
dream that this was a champion of such a delicate 
and sensitive game. He is a compact, quiet, and 
io8 



H. W. Stevenson 

joyless, almost saturnine, looking man of a prevalent 
type. His hair and moustache are of the ordinary 
colour; his height is five feet seven inches; he was 
born in 1874 at Hull. He plays without animation, 
but swiftly, and now and then with the carelessness 
of a master — though never with John Roberts's 
arrogant insouciance — but for the most part he 
shows a scrupulous thoughtfulness. He is strong 
in every department ; and I would rather see his 
nursery cannons than Recce's and his losing hazards 
than Inman's. In extricating himself from what 
look like impossible situations he can be magnifi- 
cent, and again he will miss things so simple that 
one can but gasp. If his tactics were as profound 
as his technique he would never be hard pressed by 
any player ; but his nature is simple, and he dislikes 
safety play. Left with an impossibility, he prefers 
to go for it rather than meet it with retaliatory guile. 
When waiting for his turn he sits motionless, with his 
cue vertically between his knees, and rarely watches 
the game. In fact, he has the impassivity of the 
professional at its best, but he has not the fire-proof 
temperament for the game quite as Inman has, or 
Roberts. He can be both bored and depressed. In 
watching Stevenson, one does not feel that one is 
in the presence of absolutely the liighest genius, but 
absolutely the perfect artist. 

Edward Diggle is the tallest of the group — six 
feet, if not more. He comes from Manchester and 
talks like it : descriptive reporters of his matches 
109 



Persons of Quality 

call him the Mancunian. He was born in 1873. He 
has a little dark moustache and a long chin, and 
looks delicate, with some of the gentle wistfulness of 
the invalid in his face. Diggle is a classic player : 
doing the soundest things without haste or floridity. 
He advances to the table slowly, takes his position 
slowl3^ grounds his heavy cue on the cloth for a 
moment slowly, and then makes the stroke. He 
breaks all the rules which we are so carefully taught, 
both as to standing and as to making strokes; but 
he gets there. His accuracy is a joy, and his own 
particular top-of-the-table game — a red winner alter- 
nating with a cannon — although in other hands it 
might be very monotonous, is never, to me, mo- 
notonous in his. Why he ever breaks down is a 
mystery ; but I imagine that it is due largely to 
want of physique. Also Diggle is, I am told, some- 
thing of a humorist, and humorists are rarel}^ 
champions of anything ; while with him artistry 
predominates over ambition. 

Reece, of Oldham, is as different from Diggle as 
can be imagined : an all-round athlete, very powerful, 
clean-shaven, whom one might take to be a successful 
trainer or stud-groom. He has all the quietude of a 
rich man's employee, together with the air which 
comes of receiving tlie ol)edience or admiration of 
inferiors. At his best he plays an exquisite game. 
His touch can be perfect. But liis safety tactics are 
only second-rate, he is moodier than he ought to be, 
and a run of bad luck depresses and depreciates him. 
no 



Melbourne Inman 

When playing Inman lie is pecnliarly liable to low 
spirits and raspiness ; and I don't wonder, for Inman 
is an aiitag(mist reqniring iti his opponent an amount 
of phlegm that all Holland could hardly supply. 
Reece certainly has it not. 

Melbourne Inman is indeed a hard nut to crack. 
Of all the great billiard players of the day he alone 
may be said to be out for blood. He is the only 
real fighter. The others are keen, no doubt, each 
in his way ; but their keenness is tempered by 
personal idiosyncrasy — Diggle's by a low pulse, for 
example ; Stevenson's by a master's disdain ; but 
Inman — Inman is on the make, as w^e say, all 
the time. A little, lean, anxious, watchful Hebrew, 
aged thirty-five, he is worth watching, if only as an 
object lesson in patience, thoroughness, adroitness, 
and the art of giving nothing away. He brings the 
same care to every stroke, easy or difficult, taking 
no risks. Unlike the other great players of the day, 
he has no game of his own. Stevenson, for 
example, and Reece are each always hoping to bring 
the balls together and nurse them ; Diggle manoeuvres 
the white ball to the cushion side of the red on the 
spot and makes lengthy runs of red winners and 
cannons alternately ; Gray keeps the red ball some- 
where between the middle spot and the D, and 
builds up his score with losers from it on one side 
or the other. Inman has no specialty, except a 
liking to be "in hand," but employs all these devices 
as they occur with a power peculiar to himself of 
III 



Persons of Quality 

leaving something on. The result is that not only is 
he more consistent in his breaks than his rivals, but 
he is free from the strain of playing with their anxiety 
for future combinations. Yet he is artist through 
and through as well, and it is good to watch the wan 
ghost of a smile cross his face after a great shot or 
a great fluke. He is the only one of the Masters 
whose expression ever relaxes. He is also the wiliest 
of them. His astuteness is worth many points to 
him ; and that must be a clever man who outwits him 
in safety play. 

Another reason for Inman's consistent success is 
that there is something antipathetic in his person- 
ality which seems to make all his adversaries play 
a little below themselves. What it is is not quite 
explicable : perhaps the reaction of just his sheer 
ambition : the knowledge that this man is out ulti- 
mately to defeat all comers and has no other purpose 
in life. Such a spirit animating one competitor 
could be seriously disconcerting to the other. 

Anyway, there it is, and even Diggle, apathetic 
though he is, can feel it; while, as I have said, it has 
again and again reduced Reece to the condition of a 
jelly-fish. Personally, I have no doubt but that Inman 
and Mephistopheles are in league; for though I 
have seen all these players enjoy flukes, — vols, as the 
French say so much more vividly, — I have never 
seen any whose flukes have been so outrageous or 
have come at such opportune moments as Inman's. 
That he is the luckiest player is beyond question ; 



John Roberts 

but I think that, Hke most hicky men, he deserves 
his good fortune, for he is a hard worker and he 
never relaxes, and if all-round-the-table play is 
needed he will do his best with it. Whatever he 
does, he will give the spectators an interesting time 
and his opponent a nervous one. 

Fifthly, Aiken, the Scotchman. He is the tortoise 
among these hares, and one day will win. No 
glamour whatever, no sparkle; but steady, pains- 
taking excellence. Perhaps none of them would 
so make an amateur inihappy, for his is more like 
the sublimation of the ordinary man's play. 

And the greatest oi them all, what of him ? 
Happily, although he does not play any more, he is 
still with us, handling very ably a pen instead of 
a cue. I saw him last, after a long interval, in 1912, 
and coming away from Thurston's my head was so 
full of his commanding personality that when I was 
asked by an artistic friend, meeting me, if I had 
been to the Old Masters and which did I like best, 
it was impossible to reply anything but "Roberts." 
The monumental figure with the strong carven face 
and the white hair and beard was the same Roberts 
whom I had known slender and black, save for the 
added dignity of years. A little less brisk : that 
was all. He still never seemed to look at the balls 
at all, but merely made them obey him — as though 
his cue were a wand. 

Diverse and wonderful are the gifts of God to 
man, varied are the manifestations of human genius. 
I 113 



Persons of Quality 

This will repeople the world with men and women 
of his imagination, warm with life, and we call him 
Shakespeare; this will take brusli in hand and 
evolve from wet paint new and lustrous aristocrats, 
and we call him Velasquez ; and this again will 
stoop over a table of slate covered with green cloth 
and bend the capricious diabolical spirit of ivory to 
his will, and we call him Roberts. 

On the afternoon that I saw him last, he scored 
with a rapidity that left one breathless; he made 
difficulties that he might extricate himself from 
them; he was full of fight; nothing but his great 
massive head was old. "The resource of the man !" 
sighed my neighbour. The first break that I 
watched ran to 170 and was cut short by a missed 
red loser so simple that anyone could have made it. 
But that has always been the great man's way : he 
has always disdained the easiest. His opponent 
followed, and by methods as painful and deliberate 
as Roberts's were careless and swift made a number 
of excellent book cannons. Roberts watched him 
all the time : none of the ordinary apathy of the 
waiting professional for him ; none of Stevenson's 
forlorn gaze at his polished boots. The old lion was 
keen, he wanted the table again. 

He soon had it, and was again away at the gallop, 
and not till the stroke with which the break ended 
did he make one that was not perfect — the object 
ball always as much under control as his own. Sad 
indeed that such mastery should be killed by age. 
114 



Henry Burstow 

In any rightly constructed world John Roberts and 
Cmquevalli would equally live for ever. . . . 

Watching Stevenson one marvels and marvels — 
and yet feels that some day, if one really gave one's 
life to it, one might be able to play billiards. Watch- 
ing John Roberts one is certain that one never could. 
That is the difference. 



V. - — Henry Burstow 

How many songs do you know .' That would not 
be a bad leading question to a partner, say, at dinner, 
or any new acquaintance — meaning by "knowing," 
not only the existence of the song, but its words and 
music, and a capacity to sing it at any given moment, 
with or without accompaniment added. How many 
songs do I know ^ Well, in this embracive sense I 
know none. Nature having denied me a voice ; but 
in the more meagre and contemptible sense of re- 
membering the words only and venturing, in strict 
privacy — such as in bathrooms or on hill-tops — to 
drone them, I know perhaps five all through and some 
thirty, in parts, imperfectly. And you ? Fifty, 
perhaps, but are you always pleased to sing them, 
no matter where you may be ? Because that is one 
of the chief differences between Henry Burstow and 
other folks. Henry Burstow knows four hundred 
and twenty songs, and they are at the service of any- 



Persons of Quality 

one that he likes. Not that he can give them as 
roundly as he once could, when he was in his prime, 
for he is now eighty-six; but he can remember 
them right enough and make a brave show, and in 
1906 he sang an average of ten of an evening to his 
wife — beginning on her seventy-eighth birthday and 
so continuing for forty evenings, in their home at 
Horsham, where they are still (191'^) hale and jolly. 

In the little book of Burstow's reminiscences which 
an admiring fellow-townsman has compiled from the 
old man's talk, a list of these songs is given, begin- 
ning with a number of Napoleonic carols of the Last 
Phase — such as "Boney's Farewell to Paris," 
*'Boney's Lamentation" and "Dream of Napoleon," 
and passing on to soldier songs — "Up with the 
Standard of England," and "Madam, do you know 
my trade is war .^" ; sailor songs — "Joe the Marine" 
and the "Minute Gun at Sea" ; Irish songs — "Larry 
O'Gaff" and "Pretty Susan, the Pride of Kildare"; 
rustic songs — "My good old father's farm" and 
"Butter, cheese and all"; pathetic ballads and 
humorous ballads, sentimental songs and comic songs, 
and a few classical gems, of which "When other 
lips" and "All among the barley" are examples. 
Such is Henry Burstow's repertory, much of which 
he acquired from his father, just by listening to him ; 
and it is no small achievement to liave lived a long 
life so tunefully and cheerfully as he has done, in 
great request at all jollifications and merry-makings 
by reason of this rare and cordial gift. 
Ii6 



Merry Sussex Belfries 

But that is not all. Whether or not it is a record 
to know at the age of eighty-five four hundred and 
twenty songs, I cannot say ; but there is no question 
that Henry Burstow is a record-holder in another 
melodious direction, for he has participated in ringing 
a greater number of peals of bells than any living 
man. Bell-ringing has, indeed, been the passion of 
his life, song-singing a mere accident, and cobbling 
his trade purely as a means of obtaining enough gear 
and independence to enable him to hurry to the 
belfry with a mind at ease. He began to ring at 
Horsham in 1841, when he was only fifteen, and in 
1907 he rang his last peal of 5040 changes, at Billings- 
hurst, in Sussex, himself at the third rope. The bobs 
were then called by William Short ; in the old days 
Henry Burstow was usually' the caller. He gives a 
list of fifty-three belfries, mostly in Sussex, in which 
he has rung changes, and in several of which he has 
taught ringing too. On his wedding-day, in 1855, 
with seven companions, all cobblers like himself, he 
rang from morn to night, and at Warnham m 1889 he 
was concerned in 13,440 changes, which occupied 
seven hours and three-quarters. On his sixty-fifth 
birthday, in 1891, he took part in 6720 changes of 
bob-major in Horsham Church, four hours and six 
minutes being required. So that he has some claim 
to be honoured in his own town and vicinity if 
only for helping to crash out so much music over the 
Sussex meadows these threescore years. 

Let me quote the concluding passage of his bell- 
117 



Persons of Quality 

ringing memories, a kind of prose that (to our loss) 
is not much written now : — 

"To all brother campanologists and friends who 
remain of the hundreds with whom I have had the 
pleasure of meeting and ringing in the above- 
mentioned belfries I hereby offer my kind regards 
and thanks for the hearty welcome and good fellow- 
ship they have always shown me. Their friendship 
has helped to make light and easy my advance 
through every phase of life, and given me a very 
pleasant outlook upon human nature. I can, alas ! 
never meet them in their belfries again, but should 
any of them ever come to Horsham I can give them 
a humble but warm welcome in my little room at 
28 Spencer's Road, where we can still enjoy, at least, 
the recollections of some of the merry old peals we 
have pulled together, and where they can have a few 
songs from a heart still warm and firm, if by a voice 
weakened by the inexorable operation of time. 
Peace to departed ringers whose bodies lie deaf to 
the delightful continuous sounds they once had a 
hand in creating ! Good luck to all who remain ! 
That these latter may be blessed with good health, 
firm friendships, and cheerful circumstances as I have 
been, and maintain their interest in campanology, 
their delights in the merry bell and supple rope as I 
have always been able to do, shall be my sincere 
wish as long as I live." 

A cobbler should stick to his last, says the proverb. 
ii8 



A Water-Colourist 

It is a lie. He should, unless he is a contentious 
dull dog, do no such thing, but, when Nature has 
given him humane accomplishments, use them for 
the delectation of his fellows. The first conjurer 
I ever knew was a cobbler : a real conjurer, not a 
manipulator of elaborate machinery, but one who 
acted up to his motto, "The quickness of the 'and 
deceives the heye." Like Henry Burstow, he stuck 
to his last only so far as it was necessary ; after 
that, like Henry Burstow, he was an artist and com- 
municator of pleasure. 



VI. — A. W. Rich 

Mr. Rich is something of an anachronism. He has 
a Georgian face and prematurely white hair, and in 
knee breeches he would be a perfect Old English 
squire, or even an intellectual John Bull. More- 
over, in the year 1913 he paints water colours which 
are in the great tradition of De Wint and Cotman, 
and (without any imitation) can hang his work among 
the work of these men with no suggestion of 
incongruity. 

For years I have valued the New English Art 

Club's exliibitions as much because they gave fresh 

opportunities to see Mr. Rich's landscapes as for 

anything, and on three separate occasions I have 

119 



Persons of Quality 

contrived to make one of these landscapes my own ; 
and then the other day whom should I run into but 
the painter himself, instantly recognizable to any 
one who has seen Mr. Orpen's portrait of him in 
the grand manner, sketch-book in hand, against the 
open sky. 

Mr. Rich was born in Sussex, the county he paints 
so like a lover, in 1856 (seven years after De Wint's 
death). His mother came from Plj-mouth (which 
gave the world Reynolds, Northcote, and Hay don), 
and his father from Tetbury, where there are Downs 
too, but not equal to those of Sussex; although any 
man who had walked from that Gloucestershire town 
as far as Froster Hill or Birdlip and looked over the 
Severn valley to the blue hills of Wales would have 
a better chance of becoming the father of a landscape 
painter than any who had not done this thing — 
that is to say, if Eugenics mean anything. The Lives 
of artists show us that painters may be divided into 
two classes, those who were encouraged by their 
parents to draw and those who were not (although 
a third group includes such others, of whom Opie is 
a good example, as those whose mothers favoured 
the pencil and whose fathers deplored it). Mr. Rich 
was fortunate in being one of the encouraged group. 
He was given Charles Knight's Old England when 
only five, and copied the cuts in it assiduously, and 
when he was nine he was taken to the National 
Gallery for the first time. His earliest love among 
the water-colour men was Peter De Wint, but he 

I20 



A Blest Pair of Dancers 

admired and studied also Paul Sandby, Cotman, and 
John Varley. 

And the result ? Well, for my part, I find upon his 
parallelograms of Whatman, ten inches by eight, or 
thereabouts, more of the vital England that I know 
and revere — beneath English sky and filled with 
English atmosphere — than in the water colours of 
any other man now painting. He is at once 
stronger and truer than any of his contemporaries ; 
although when it comes to prettiness he is beaten on 
all sides. But his austerity I like, and his desire 
for the secret too, leading him to look deeper into 
a wooded valley than anyone, and never to be afraid 
of the most fugitive cloud. Were he ever inclined 
to leave nature and take to super-nature, he could 
make a wonderful dark tower for Childe Roland's 
ciuest, and such a winding road beside a gloomy wood 
leading to it. 



VII. — Two OF OUR Conquerors 

GENEE AND PAVLOVA 

Although theirs the same lovely and joyous art, this 
blest pair of dancers could not well be separated by 
wider divergences ; the one a merry blonde from busy, 
prosperous Denmark ; the other the product of that 
strange, sombre, decadent country where East and 
West meet and barbarism seems never far distant. 

121 



Persons of Quality 

Each appeals to a different mood. When it comes 
to actual dancing — to the precision and fluidity of 
the steps and movements — there is httle to choose : 
Pavlova may be perhaps a shade more astoundinglj^ 
accomplished. But for the most part our preference 
is not for the execution but for the executant. We 
like Pavlova best, or Genee best, according to our 
temperament, or according, as I say, to our mood. 
Pavlova is more languorous, more dangerous, more 
exotic ; Genee is quicker, gay and jocund. Pavlova 
has more than an Oriental suggestion ; Genee is one 
of us — a Northerner. Pavlova is aufond melancholy ; 
Genee is a kitten. 

The Russian is more beautiful; she has, as one 
imagines, a rarer beauty than any of her most 
illustrious predecessors, most of whom had a ten- 
dency to thick ankles and powerful legs. Pavlova 
might never have done anything but ride in a 
carriage or recline on a sofa — so soft and graceful is 
she ; and her shoulders are never to be forgotten. 
But her face lacks expression. Her face, one says; 
yet as a matter of curious fact Pavlova has two faces, 
not as Janus had, but as a charming woman may 
have who is capable of apathy. One is amiable, the 
other is set, and they are strangely different : almost 
they might belong to different persons. Pavlova 
has two faces and only one expression for each ; 
and here is one of the chief points of contrast 
between herself and Genee, for Genee is not only a 
dancer but an actress with a play and range of ani- 

122 



Genee and Pavlova 

mation on her little mischievous upturned features for 
which many an actress who is actress and notliing else 
would give such of her pearls as had not been stolen. 

In a little piece in which Genee has recently per- 
formed — an episode in the life of one of the most 
famous dancers of all, the Belgian Camargo — most of 
the emotions pass across her face : joy, disappoint- 
ment, triumph, hope, fear, content; while now and 
then, as when she pretends that the king has repaid 
the boon, she is the incarnation of roguishness and 
the very spirit of teasing. 

Pavlova would be lost here — just as Genee would 
be lost in the Bacchanale — although not so com- 
pletely. Pavlova one can see making some kind of 
a brave effort with the king and the unhappy young 
soldier, although never to the point of touching the 
emotions, as Genee does ; but Genee one cannot 
imagine for a moment in the amorous ecstasy of that 
wonderful vintage riot. Therein lies the essential 
diflference between these two superb artists, Pavlova 
is for the sophisticated : Genee for the simple. 



VIII. — Councillor Koppel 

The other day my roving eye alighted on this 
paragraph, similar, alas ! to too many which now 
find their way into print : — 

"Yet another picture of considerable importance 
has to be added to the ever-growing list of Old 
123 



Persons of Quality 

Masters that have left England never to return. It 
is the large 'Tribute Money,' by Rubens, which 
was exhibited at the Royal Academy last winter by 
the trustees of the late Miss M. A. Driver. The 
purchaser is Councillor Koppel, of Berlin, and the 
purchase price is said to be £10,000." 

And as I read the last sentence I smiled, and 
there rose before me the image of one of the most 
satisfying specimens of the genus collector I have 
yet met (and may I meet many more !) moving 
quietly in his small, but exquisite, Berlin gallery. 
I saw him again, a white-haired old gentleman, with 
a heavy white moustache, dressed all in black, very 
hospitable and friendly to the stranger, bringing the 
magnifying glass for me the better to discern the 
very Vermeerish figures which Adrian Van de Velde 
(or why not Van der Heyden himself ?) inserted in 
a Van der Heyden street scene, perhaps the best 
example in existence, beyond even those at Hertford 
House ; referring to a notebook for the history of 
this picture and that; gently murmuring extolling 
phrases in soothing broken English as we paused 
before his masterpieces one by one ; pointing out 
the best angle from which to see each; and all the 
while himself so perceptibly happy to be again 
admiring what he had admired so often before, and 
will, I hope, be spared to admire for many years 
yet. 

It is a small room built for its purpose and given 
wholly to the few but fitting, with a table in the 
124 



A German Collector 

midst laden with books on painting. Sitting here 
now, with my eyes tightly closed, I find I can 
reconstruct most of each wall, which says more for 
the force of their owner's personality than many 
sentences could, for it is only because he was there 
too, with his lulling phrases of enthusiasm, that I have 
the scene so clear. You enter to Rembrandt, on 
the right of the door in the end wall being a portrait, 
of the old giant himself, late in life, when the stress 
of it all had begun to tell, and on the left a land- 
scape, tiny in size, but vast in effect, two small 
portraits, and the very beautiful "Christ and the 
Woman of Samaria," with a fine burst of sky above 
them. On the right wall is a Nicholas Maes, of a 
quality equal to the great Ryks "Prayer," but not a 
fourth its size ; a tiny Paul Potter, which one would 
not exchange for a herd of his Hague "Bulls"; a 
green mound with a fringe of trees on it washed 
with something very like an Albert Cuyp light; and 
a Jacob Ruysdael "pay sage" : a road between a canal 
and a wood, with light through the branches, and 
more foretastes of Barbizon than often gathered in a 
seventeenth-century canvas. 

The large portrait in the centre of this wall (each 
has one) is a Mierevelt : a Dutch lady in black with 
a ruff; and soon after we are before that glancing 
brilliant thing, the Van der Heyden, a painter whose 
special joy and triumph it was to transmute bricks 
and mortar to jewels. After the Van der Heyden 
I am a little misty among peasants. Jan Steen, 
125 



Persons of Quality 

Ostade, and Teniers I remember, though not too 
distinctly; and then comes the great Hals with a 
commanding portrait of a woman, the head not so 
miraculously done as in some, but a left hand witli 
gloves in it that is nearer magic than craftsmanship. 
Again I am a little misty, this time amid landscapes ; 
I remember only vaguely another Ruysdael, not 
so good as the last, an Aert Van der Neer, a be- 
calmed sea by Van der Goyen, a Cuyp, a Wouwermans 
battlepiece, and then everything is vivid again before 
one of the most glorious Van Dycks in existence — 
a countess from Genoa — painted during his Italian 
period, rich and sympathetic and profound. Above 
it is a child by Rubens ; but where the new Rubens 
is to go — if, indeed, it is meant for this room — I 
cannot imagine. It is surely too large, too restless. 
This room is for placid work. 

And why did I smile when I read the paragraph ? 
Because I remembered the whisper in which Coun- 
cillor Koppel informed me, not without a twinkle, 
that nearly every picture in his collection came from 
England. And now another ! Well, he is almost 
the only foreigner to whom I would not grudge 
them, for he has a heart for painting. 



126 



The Jolly Good Fellows <:^ ^;^ <;> 

POINDING m\'self alone in London one night 
recently, I wandered into a large and exclusively 
English restaurant not far from the juncture of 
Kingsway and Holborn ; and there I lingered long 
over a very late dinner or early supper, while one by 
one the other guests vanished. A time came when 
I realized that save for the waiters I had the place 
to myself — a condition of things which suited the 
somewhat anti-social brooding mood into which I 
had fallen, when suddenly the muffled strains of a 
familiar chant took my ear, and I was aware that at 
a banquet in one of the many large private dining- 
rooms of the building one of the company was being 
toasted, and all the other guests were on their 
feet singing to the prescribed tune the form of 
words prescribed for such occasions. Every one 
knows it. 

The sound brought the scene before me as vividly 

almost as if I were there. I could see the honoured 

guest sitting a little confused under the compliment, 

its cloying sweetness so long and embarrassingly 

127 



The Jolly Good Fellows 

drawn out. I fancied him not quite knowing where 
to look, toying with a fork or his cigar as some kind 
of solace or support; while the others, each holding 
a glass, roared out this almost national anthem, 
beaming upon him as they did so, or laughingly 
catching each other's eyes. 

So I saw the scene first, considering the recipient 
of the honour a novice and rather proud of his popu- 
larity ; but then it occurred to me that he might be 
no novice at all but one inured to the flattery — it 
might have been his portion for years, for there is 
something chronic about jolly good fellowship — 
and so far from faltering beneath the unction, he 
might be criticising a fancied want of cordiality and 
comparing the occasion with others to its disad- 
vantage ; might even under his brows be detecting 
here and there a silent mouth or a satirical glint in 
an eye ; might be appraising too curiously the 
volume of sound, or speculating on which of the 
singers — all inferior men to himself — was, by being 
the next guest so honoured, to diminish the homage, 
until, as the evening wore on and the compliment 
had been too often repeated, it would have sunk to 
a mere perfunctory ritual. (He, however, was the 
first.) 

And I wondered a little, too, as to who began this 
particular song, for such things are always the work 
of one man. Occasionally, I remembered, the pro- 
poser of the toast himself gives the signal for 
musical honours (as they are called), but more often 
128 



"With Musical Honours" 

it is some warm-blooded, impulsive fellow among the 
crowd. I seemed to see him — one of the confident 
men with a voice full of assurance whom in one's 
looser moments one envies so — holding up his hand 
and beginning the long first note, "Fo-o-o-r," and 
the others gradually joining in with "he's a jolly 
good fellow," and launching the litany once more 
into being. And was there ever a case, I wondered, 
where the rest of the company had refused to join 
in ? and if so, how did the initiator bear it .^ Do 
such men feel affronts .^ To me, who can be daunted 
by the smile of a total stranger in the street (and he 
probably thinking of something else), this is an 
interesting question. And as I reached this point 
in my idle thoughts, once again the chant sounded, 
and I realized that already the honour had begun to 
lose its fine edge. There was danger that the place 
was about to be overdone with jolly good fellows. 

Thus sitting there, all alone in my solitude, I went 
on to wonder what it means to be a jolly good 
fellow : how they do it : what alterations in one's 
own speech and habits, for example, would be 
necessary before one also could become a target for 
this festive concerto. Must not one be rather 
underlined, rather powerful, certainly no friend to 
anonymity .^ And with one's preference for in- 
dividual treatment and dislike of generalizing con- 
ventions, should one like it if it did happen ? All 
men being different, there seemed to be something 
wrong about so universal and undiscriminating a 
K 129 



The Jolly Good Fellows 

form of compliment; but perhaps the jolly good 
fellows are all alike. 

My thoughts wandered on to the jolly good 
fellows' wives. Were they jolly too ? And good ? 
Would they be proud and happy when their 
husbands told them the news of to-night's triumph, 
or would they have still another problem to solve as 
to the incomprehensible nature of man ? Or would 
they forestall the news by sarcastic comment : 
"Well, I suppose you were the usual jolly good 
fellow again .^ It's not so difficult at public dinners 
as at home, is it ?" 

And I wondered, too, if there were any men in 
the room near me who had long nourished the 
ambition to be sung at like this, but could never 
contrive to be jolly enough ; or at any rate who 
lacked some quality — ■ perhaps influence — to procure 
the ecstasy. There may be men — so little we know 
of each other — who have died lamenting the loss of 
this manifestation of success. There may be gener- 
ous creatures who have begun these musical honours 
— sounded the first note tentatively or with confi- 
dence — for scores and scores of fellow-diners, and by 
their very generosity (for it is an obliterating quality) 
have been themselves overlooked all their lives. While 
I continued idly to sit there, and the real supping 
parties were beginning to enter, I was conscious that 
the public dinner whose vocal quality had given rise 
to all these thoughts and speculations was by no 
means the only one then proceeding in this great 

130 



The Question 

building. The notes of the same chant were reaching 
me more or less distinctly from crowded tables in two 
other banqueting rooms ; and I paid my bill and 
emerged into the street stunned by the realization 
of how many jolly good fellows the world contains, 
and how fair a lot to fill is left to each man still, 
and the question, Would I really try to be one also ? 



131 



Thoughts on Magic ^^^ ^> ^^^ ^:> 

I WAS present the other day at one of those 
discussions on conjuring which everybody must 
know. One of the party had just seen a conjurer 
and had been perplexed by a trick. He first 
described the trick, and then we suggested different 
ways in which it might have been done, of all of 
which he was scornful. At last he was asked if, then, 
he considered the conjurer a real wizard employing 
actual magic ? He disclaimed an}^ frame of mind so 
absurd; but as a matter of fact, that is what he 
wanted to think, and that is what we all want to 
think when we see a conjurer, and ever shall want. 
For magic is poor human nature's dearest desire. 

Old people know it is not for them; middle-aged 
people suspect sadly it is not for them; but children 
— and so many of us are always children — long for 
it hopefully. A ban on fairy-tales would, of course, 
be powerful to check such a longing; but nothing 
could wholly eradicate it. In my early days I was 
divided as to what magical thing I most wanted — 
whether it was a packet of fern-seed to make me 
132 



The Three Wishes 

invisible, or a purse that always had money in it, or 
a flying carpet. Then I came across the wishing- 
cap, and, of course, fixed upon that, because one 
could then wish for invisibility, or wealth, or travel, 
at will. 

Yet even as a child I remember feeling that there 
was something a little too wholesale about this cap. 
It did too much. I contrasted it with that commoner 
apparatus of the fairy-tale, the article which confers 
three wishes only, and I decided, with a fumbling 
towards the truer romance, that thus to limit the 
ambition was both more just and more interesting. 
Yet there again I always found myself wondering 
why the first wish was not for a wishing-cap ; and 
indeed the folly of the wishers in all the stories of 
the three wishes is perhaps many a child's first 
glimpse of real miserable misfortune, beyond any of 
the more cunningly-manufactured material, such as 
Misunderstood and similar narratives. I can still 
recall the fury I felt that such a gift should have 
been entrusted to those stupid peasants whose first 
wish (by the wife) was for a ladle, the second (by 
the angry husband) that it might stick in her mouth, 
and the third (by the wife) that it might be extracted 
again. That such a chance should have come and 
have been so wasted desolated me more than any 
aggregation of Sophoclean disasters could have done. 
This was tragedy, if you like. 

Wishing was probably never better managed than 
in "The Tinder Box," always my favourite fairy- 



Thoughts on Magic 

story. That was my choicest hero for many years — 
the soldier home from the wars who, when he struck 
the flint which gave him what he wanted, always 
wanted the right thing. He made no mistakes. 

Thinking it over, I find that I never unreservedly 
accepted magic. I liked it only when I liked it. 
Scepticism was just round the corner. For example, 
I liked fern-seed, and caps or cloaks of invisibility, 
and I liked bottomless purses (immensely) ; but I 
did not like seven-league boots. I could understand 
vaguely but sufficiently those other lenitives of a 
drab life ; but I could not understand seven-league 
boots. I could not see how one's legs could stretch 
so far, irrespective of foot-gear. Seven leagues, I 
discovered, were twenty-one miles, the distance from 
Dover to Calais, and it bothered me. I wondered 
to a point of desperation how one reached a place 
that was, say, only five leagues away. Could one 
take a short step ? These little worries irritated me, 
although I accepted Perseus's winged sandals quite 
naturally. 

The only blot on "The Tinder Box," which I 
consider the best comic fairy -story ever written, was 
the size of the dogs' eyes. These were just ordinary 
dogs, capable of being lifted and seated on an old 
woman's apron, and yet the eyes of one were as big 
as saucers, of another mill-wheels, and of the third 
towers — meaning, I suppose, the tops of circular 
towers. That description came perilously near ruin- 
ing it for me ; but the rest saved it. Still I do not 
134 



"The Tinder Box" 

absolve Andersen from a blemish. It is perhaps the 
only one in all his adorable pages. "Cinderella," 
which is of course the best fairy-tale of all, perfect 
in ingredients, perfect in arrangement, and perfect 
in its end, has no such fault. I could believe every 
word of it; and then "Cinderella" has tenderness 
too, whereas "The Tinder Box" is all farce and 
swagger. But how good ! 

I am writing of feelings that are past. To meet 
with the supernatural in any form whatever in a 
novel of to-day causes me to lay down the book — 
unless, of course, Mr. Anstey is the author. The 
others — the serious ones — who revive the dead, or 
transfuse blood and personality, or accumulate ghosts, 
or visit the future, or converse with spirits — these I 
send back to the library by return of post. I am 
too old for any magic but the magic of Nature : the 
magic, for instance, that educes a flaming hollyhock 
eight feet high from a little, dry, dark chip in a 
penny packet, and from a speckled blue and black 
egg an inch long calls forth a bird which sings 
divinely through the April rain. But I still think 
"The Tinder Box" one of the best stories in the 
world. 



135 



Tom Girtin <;> <:^ <;::> ^;:> ^c^ ^^ 

A DEALER (the story runs), calling one morn- 
ing in a hackney coach on Turner, and looking 
over the works in his studio, said, "These are very 
fine, Mr. Turner, but I have brought something 
finer with me." "I don't know what that can 
be," was the reply, "unless it's Tom Girtin's 'White 
House at Chelsea.'" 

And again, long after, the same painter, who sur- 
vived Girtin by forty-nine years and left an immense 
fortune, was heard to remark, "Had Girtin lived I 
should have starved"; while Constable used to say 
that the study of thirty Girtin drawings lent to him 
by Sir George Beaumont completely changed the 
trend of his genius. 

And who was the candid, powerful, innovating 
young hand of whom these masters spoke ? Thomas 
Girtin, the son of a Southwark ropemaker, was born 
on February 18tli, in 1775, eight days after Charles 
Lamb, His first master was Edward Dayes, a water- 
colour painter and engraver, who practised all his 
life that blue-grey tinting which Girtin and Turner 
began with, but soon abandoned. Dayes, a dis- 
136 



Dr. Monro 

agreeable man but fine artist (a perfectly possible 
combination), had a short way with apprentices who 
showed signs of revolt, and Girtin found himself in 
the Fleet for breaking his indentures. There he 
covered his walls with sketches which the Earl of 
Essex chanced to see, and his lordship procured the 
boy's release both from prison and from Dayes. 
Girtin next associated himself with a genial and 
convivial painter and engraver named John Raphael 
Smith, in whose studio he found a promising, 
although somewhat anti-social, youth of his own age 
named Turner, the son of a Maiden Lane barber. 
English artists no longer have such humble begin- 
nings as these twain, but they do not, it is thought, 
paint any the better for it. Together the boys tinted 
Smith's mezzotints : while under Smith it is possible, 
too, that Girtin learned that life was not wholly 
devoid of beer and skittles. 

Few cities — probably none — are visited by such 
industrious and enthusiastic hero-worshippers as 
London, tireless in their desire to stand reverently 
in historic spots and gaze with awe and rapture 
upon the abodes of great men. But who has ever 
seen a knot of admirers, or even a rapt individual, 
before No. 8 Adelphi Terrace "^ Yet it was there 
that Dr. Thomas Monro lived, and it was Monro 
who was the principal encourager of the young 
water-colourists of that day — from Cozens to Cot- 
man — not only giving them the good supper they 
probably only too badly needed, but a few shillings 

137 



Tom Girtin 

])esides, together with stimulating counsel and the 
opportunity to copy great masters. 

Monro was on the staff of Bethlehem Hospital, 
and when poor Cozens, who among their prede- 
cessors had most of the divine fire which Girtin 
and Turner were to tend, went mad, the Doctor 
cared for him; while he not only gathered young 
men about him at No. 8, but took them on sketch- 
ing excursions around London. Altogether, for liis 
services to British water-colour painting he deserves 
a statue of gold in the Victoria and Albert Museum ; 
but he does not possess one. There is not even a 
tablet on his house. 

But Monro did not e ihaust the stimulating 
influence of Adelphi Terrace, for next door lived 
John Henderson, wlio also had taste and the sense 
of patronage ; and to one or other of these houses, 
but chiefly Monro's, the two youths Girtin and 
Turner went, evening after evening, when their work 
for Smith was done, and either made original draw- 
ings, or tinted outlines, or copied from Canaletto, 
Gainsborough, Piranesi, or Cozens himself. Mr. 
Binyon considers that the influence upon both 
youths of the Adelphi Canalettos cannot be over- 
estimated, and Turner, who was not often articu- 
lately grateful, later in life painted a picture in 
which his indebtedness to, or at any rate admiration 
of, the Venetian painter is recorded. Most of the 
British Museum Girtins and Cozens are from Hender- 
son's collection. 

138 



A Band of Brothers 

When tlie time came to leave London Girtin fell 
in with a travelling antiquary and amateur artist, 
named James Moore, and accompanied him on 
various extended tours in the North. He also once 
went to Scotland by sea with that dangerous char- 
acter, George Morland, who not only strongly 
objected to be sober himself but disliked his com- 
panions to be so ; but there is no good evidence 
that Girtin did more at any time than prefer 
Bohemianism to staidness, and was open-handed, 
warm-hearted, and beloved by all who knew him — 
always excepting Edward Dayes. 

This artistic zeal and cheerj^ friendliness led him, 
in the late nineties, to establish an artists' club, the 
members of which met at each other's houses or 
lodgings, and drew, ate, and joked ; among them being 
Cotman, Francia, later the instructor of Bonington 
(who was not yet born), Calcott, afterwards Sir 
Augustus, and Ker Porter, afterwards Sir Robert, 
brother of Jane Porter, who wrote The Scottish 
Chiefs and made use of some of her brother's 
experiences as a young artist in her Thaddeus of 
Warsaw. But Turner was not a member ; his genius 
lay outside such sodalities ; he worked alone, almost 
in secret, and saved his money. 

Thus Girtin lived, marrying early, travelling 
much, always kindly, always busy, almost always 
inspired, changing his abode often, until his pre- 
mature death, from consumption, in 180'2, at the 
early age of twent^^-seven. He was buried in St. 

139 



Tom Girtin 

Paul's, Covent Garden, and Turner was at his 
funeral. Indeed it is said that Turner paid for his 
gravestone ; and I hope it is true. 

Of *'The White House at Chelsea," which is 
Girtin's masterpiece, there are two versions, of which 
the finer, and probably the first, belongs to Mr. 
Micholls, who has kindly allowed me to reproduce 
it as the frontispiece to this book. The picture, 
which was epoch-making, is one of the earliest — if 
not quite the earliest — transcripts of the romantic 
beauty and mystery of the Thames, and nothing 
has more serenity and charm. One can under- 
stand, as one looks at the original, what Turner 
meant in his remark to the dealer, and how it is 
that English art has never been the same since it 
was painted. It is one of the constructive pictures : 
a work with no influence before it, save the desire 
to be true and beautiful, but enormous influences in 
its wake. 



140 



My "Walks Abroad <^:^ <:^ <:> ^ 

I. — Ophrys apifera 

I HAD always v/anted to find one for myself, 
unaided, but I had never done so. Last year a 
friend led me up the slopes of Wolstonbury and 
turned me loose on a small area where it was known 
to grow, and very soon, sure enough, a specimen came 
to hand ; but that is not the real thing. It is almost 
like buying a bird's egg for a collection, although of 
course, not really base, as that is. 

Hence when suddenly, on our own hillside, 
thinking of something else, I saw the beautiful 
flower at my feet, no wonder I was excited ; and I 
still am. It was one of the peaks of Darien that 
all of us cherish. 

Really it is a most exquisite flower, without being 
too exquisite. That, of course, is the danger it runs, 
but it is avoided. The green of the stem is so light 
and radiant ; the stem itself so firm and straight ; 
the blossoms are set on it with such proud distinc- 
tion ; the purple of the petal is so gay and pure and 
141 



My Walks Abroad 

rare. And then there is its magic and wonder too 
— the delightful resemblance to a bee. That there 
should be a bee in a flower, or on a flower, is the 
most natural thing possible. But that a flower 
should actually be a bee — that is a miracle. All 
flowers, of course, are miracles, but this is a miracle 
beyond most. 

And the diversity of flowers ! — here one actually is 
face to face with a profound and moving mystery. 
Why flow ers were made at all : there is problem 
enough there for the most avid inquirer, particularly 
as the solution must ever escape him ; and then why 
flowers were made in such variety and profusion, 
since were there fewer no one would miss tliose that 
had never been made. Why, for example, does my 
botany-book contain ten coloured plates each devoted 
to from five to seven kinds of wild parsley, when one 
wild parsley would (I imagine) do ? 

Flowers, I take it (using as much human reason- 
ing power as was allotted me), were made either to 
gladden the eye of man and make him more con- 
tented with the earth, or as medicines and fodder, 
or to provide bees with honey, or perhaps for all 
these purposes. What amount of honey the Ophrys 
apifera yields I have no notion ; but there is some- 
thing very charming in the idea of Flora reproducing 
in vegetable form this little industrious friend and 
ally of hers — fixing him for ever on the stalk of tliis 
shy, distinguished plant, just as a Japanese artist 
sets a mother-of-pearl butterfly on a screen : so that 
142 



The Bee-Orchis 

if at any time, by some dreadful and unthinkable 
calamity, all the hives were destroyed and every 
drone and worker in the world exterminated, we 
might still be charmingly informed as to what 
they were like by hunting (as I have been doing 
every day for a fortnight) on the thymy slopes of a 
chalk down until we found a bee-orchis. 

For you must not believe the papers — they were 
at it again the other day, after the Holland House 
show — when they pretend that the only orchid- 
hunting that has any romance or excitement in it 
is that in the tropics, as described so vividly by Mr. 
Frederick Boyle. The English orchid-hunter may 
not run the risks of swamp-fever and snake-bites, 
nor, happily, will his efforts yield such golden 
returns ; but everything else he has — the pleasure 
of the chase, the rapture of the find, the adventures 
by the way, and, above all, England. 

I once had an Uncle Charles, who belonged to the 
old school of naturalists and sportsmen — that is to 
say, what he owned in the way of specimens he had 
obtained unaided save by his own eyes, his own legs, 
his own hands, his own gun, or his own dog. A 
bachelor, he had time for such pursuits, and his rooms 
were lined with cases of birds, and his head was stored 
with the knowledge of the field and the wood. Among 
other things that he knew was the home of the rarer 
wild flowers of Sussex. But do you think he would 
tell anyone ? Not he. The man-orchis, the fly-orchis, 
the jbutterfly-orchis, the frog-orchis, the bee-orchis 
143 



M)^ Walks Abroad 

— }ie liad a cache of eacli kind in his memory and 
conld go straight to the spot at the right time. 
But he would not tell. "No," he would say, 
"that's my secret. But I will make an exception 
in your favour. I will tell you more than I ever 
told anyone else. I get out at Balcombe Station." 
Somewhat in this way do I intend to address in- 
quirers who ply me too narrowly as to the habitat 
of the bee-orchis. Such secrets must be kept. 



II. — The Bats 

{Written in February) 

There is a street in London called Cranbourn 
Street, which serves no particular purpose of its own, 
but is useful as leading from Long Acre and Garrick 
Street to the frivolous delights of the Hippodrome, 
and serviceable also in the possession of a Tube 
station from which one may go to districts of 
London as diverse as Golder's Green and Hammer- 
smith. These to the ordinary eye are the principal 
merits of Cranbourn Street. But, to the eye which 
more minutely discerns, it has deeper and finer 
riches : it has a shop window with a little row of 
cricket bats in it so discreetly chosen that they not 
only form a vivid sketch of the history of the 
greatest of games but enable anyone standing at 
the window and studying them to defeat for the 
144 



A Royal Cricketer 

moment the attack of the dreariest of weather 
and for a brief but glorious space believe in the sun 
again. 

And what of the treasures ? Well, to begin with, 
the oldest known bat is here — a dark lop-sided club 
such as you see in the early pictures in the pavilion 
of Lord's, that art gallery which almost justifies rain 
during a match, since it is only when rain falls that 
one examines it with any care. Of this bat there is 
obviously no history, or it would be written upon it, 
and the fancy is therefore free to place it in what- 
ever hands one will — Tom Walker's, or Beldham's, 
or Lord Frederick Beauclerk's, or even Richard 
Nyren's himself, father of the first great eulogist of 
the game. Beside it is another veteran, not quite 
so old, though, and approaching in shape the bat of 
our own day — such a bat as Lambert, or that daunt- 
less sportsman, Mr. Osbaldiston ("The Squire," as he 
was known in the hunting-field), may have swung 
in one of their famous single-wicket contests. 

Beside these is even more of a curiosity. Nothing 
less than the very bat which during his brief and 
not too glorious cricket career was employed to 
defend his wicket, if not actually to make runs, by 
the late King Edward VII when he was Prince of 
Wales. For that otherwise accomplished ruler and 
full man (as the old phrase has it) was never much 
of a C. B. Fry. He knew the world as few have 
known it; he commanded respect and affection; he 
was accustomed to give orders and have them 



My Walks Abroad 

instantly obeyed ; but almost anyone could bowl 
him out, and it is on record that those royal hands, 
so capable in their grasp of orb and sceptre, had 
only the most rudimentary and incomplete idea of 
retaining a catch. Such are human limitations ! 
Here, however, in the Cranbourn Street window, is 
His Majesty's bat, and even without the accom- 
panying label one would guess that it was the 
property of no very efficient cricketer. For it lacks 
body; no one who really knew would have borne to 
the pitch a blade so obviously incapable of getting 
the ball to the ropes; while just beneath the too 
fanciful splice is a silver plate. Now all cricketers 
are aware that it is when the incoming man carries 
a bat with a silver plate on it that the scorers (if 
ever) feel entitled to dip below the table for the 
bottle and glass and generally relax a little. 

So much for what may be called the freaks of this 
fascinating window. Now for the facts. A very 
striking fact indeed is the splintered bat with which 
Mr. G. L. Jessop made a trifle of 168 against 
Lancashire. I wish the date was given; I wish even 
more that the length of the innings in minutes was 
given. Whether the splinters were lost then, or later, 
we should also be told. But there it is, and, after see- 
ing it, how to get through these infernal months of 
February and March and April and half May, until 
real life begins again, one doesn't know and can 
hardly conjecture. And what do you think is be- 
side it? Nothing less than "tlie best bat" that Mr, 
146 



"W. G." 

M. A. Noble ever played witli — the leisurely, watchful 
Australian master, astute captain, inspired change- 
bowler, and the steady, remorseless compiler of 
scores at the right time. It is something to have 
in darkest February Noble's best bat beneath one's 
eyes. 

And lastly, there is a scarred and discoloured 
blade which bears the brave news that with it did 
that old man hirsute, now on great match-days a 
landmark in the Lord's pavilion, surveying the turf 
where once he ruled, — "W. G. " himself, no less, — 
make over a thousand runs. Historic wood, if you 
like ; historic window ! 

No wonder, then, that I scheme to get Cranbourn 
Street into my London peregrinations. For here 
is youth renewed and the dismallest of winters 
momentarilv slain. 



III. — Entente 

Certain London streets even in one's own district 
one never uses; and eminent, in my case, among 
these is that one, to me nameless, which runs 
parallel with St. Martin's Lane, a little to the east- 
ward. It has a cheap printer's at one end, opposite 
an eye hospital, and it riuis away into small shops 
and model dwellings. 

H7 



My Walks Abroad 

Well, I chanced to be there the other night taking 
a short cut from St. Martin's Lane to the Strand, 
and found myself in a little crowd surrounding a 
large, brilliantly lighted motor-car. Why the crowd 
waited, I did not know or ask; it was enough to 
make one of them and wait too, for that is life. 
And then, after a minute or so, from the Coliseum 
stage-door, which I observed for the first time, 
emerged a polite foreign gentleman in evening dress 
followed by a volatile foreign lady with a mass of 
dark red hair and strong, animated features. The 
little crowd palpitated and cheered, and the bolder 
ones among us said, "Bong swaw," or "Veev 
Sahrah." 

While the famous lady was smiling and bowing 
and waving her hand, and the gentleman was 
looking self-effacing, and the chauffeur was putting 
his deadly machinery into working order, I walked 
on, and at the corner, between the cheap printer's 
and the eye hospital, stood a costermonger with a 
barrow of apples. I reached him just at the 
moment when the motor-car, illuminated like 
an excursion steamer, passed Being a gallant 
creature and accustomed to the time-table of 
tragediennes, he barely looked up from the sale of 
two Ribstons as he called out in a hearty London 
voice, "Good night, Sarah!" and again w^as im- 
mersed in trade. "Sarah Burnhard," he explained 
to his perplexed customer. 



148 



Major Brooke 



IV. — The Good Major 

Every now and then one's eyes alight upon some- 
thing which empliasizes the death of the past with 
disconcerting vividness. 

Turning recently into Shepherd's Gallery in King 
Street to see what English masters had been assembled 
in those rooms sacred to Gainsborough and Constable, 
Reynolds, Romney, Bonington, and the other great 
men of the late seventeen hundreds and early 
eighteens, I was immensely tickled by a mediocre 
canvas belonging to, say, 1770. It depicted an elderly 
gentleman of benevolent aspect, in a wig, knee- 
breeches, and white silk stockings, seated at a table 
with an open book in his hand. Behind and about 
him were spinning-wheels, bundles of flax, and so 
forth, and before him three small children — the first 
a boy on his knees in an attitude of prayer, the 
second a girl in a neat mob-cap, standing, and lastly 
a very minute person indeed hiding behind the girl. 
Judged as a work of art, the picture had no merits 
whatever ; it was merely a painted record. But as 
a human document it was priceless, w^hile as a 
reminder of the flight of time and change of fashions 
it could not well be more striking ; for how do 
you think the title of it ran — painted boldly on 
a wooden label fixed to the top of the frame ? It 
ran thus: "Major Brooke instructing the Children 
of the Sunday School and School of Industry 

149 



My Walks Abroad 

ill Bath in the First Principles of the Christian 
Religion." 

Impossible to conceive of such a picture being 
painted to-day. Not that we have not equally bad 
artists or equally good majors; but our bad artists 
choose other subjects, and our good majors leave the 
inculcation of the First Principles of the Christian 
Religion into other people's children to other people. 
Nor are they any longer quite so confident as to 
what the First Principles of the Christian Religion 
are. But Major Brooke — amiable dodo ! — he had 
no doubts. 



V. — The Rogues 

Artists in fraud are always with us, but it is un- 
usual to meet with three good examples in one 
week. Yet I have just done so. I had drifted into 
a billiard saloon in the West Central district, where 
there are many tables, including French ones with- 
out pockets, and I noticed two men playing. Their 
game was indifferent, but they themselves were so 
difficult to place that I was interested. Not book- 
makers and not dealers of any kind, but a type, 
distinctly Hebraic, between those callings. They 
were carefully dressed, but very common, and they 
had both time and money, for here they were idling 
as early as half-past four. 

150 



The Auction 

They left before I did ; and passing out soon after- 
wards into a busy street I found myself looking into 
one of those shops from which the windows and 
door have been removed in order that sales by 
auction may be the more easily carried on in them. 
The auctioneer was shouting in the rostrum, and 
behold he was one of the billiard players ! Pictures, 
busts, watches, jewellery and ornaments were the 
stock, and a gaudy pair of vases was being put up. 
There was hesitation in bidding, and at last a voice 
offered five shillings. After a few languid bids the 
vases were knocked down to this speculator, whom 
I could not see, for a pound. 

"Some people think these sales are not genuine," 
the auctioneer said, "but I gite you my word they 
are. Some say that these bids are made by our 
own friends, just to encourage the others; but it is 
untrue. You, sir," he added, turning to the success- 
ful bidder, "you have never seen me before, have 
you ^ 

We all looked toward the gentleman in question, 
and a displacement of heads permitted me to see 
him clearly. 

"You've never seen me before, have you, sir.^" 
the auctioneer inquired again. 

"Never," said the man. 

It was the other player in the game of billiards. 

Tliat was on a Tliursday. The next day I met 
l).\- chance an old acquaintance, in whose curiosity- 
shop in the seaside town that I was now visiting 
151 



My Walks Abroad 

again I had, twenty and more years ago, spent far 
too much time, drawn thither partly by a natural 
leaning towards pictures and books and pottery and 
all the other odds and ends which come from every 
corner of the earth and all ages to make up the 
stock-in-trade of such places, but more by the 
personality of the dealer. Nominally he was a 
goldsmith and jeweller, as every great artist in Italy 
used to be, but actually he was an amusing loafer. 
He sat at a little vice, with a file in his hand, and 
did nothing but talk. He passed his fingers through 
his bushy iron-grey locks, glanced at the reflection 
of his bright eyes and ruddy cheeks in the mirror — 
there was always a mirror — and talked. His pet 
illusion was that he was Byronic. He had for re- 
vealed religion a scorn which he thought Byronic, 
although it was really of the brand of Foote and 
Taxil ; he had for the moral code a contempt which 
he thought Byronic, although it was merely the 
most ordinary self-indulgence. But Byron having 
been loose in such matters, he was looser with a 
greater courage. He had a mischievous, sardonic 
view of the world which he thought was Byronic, 
but which was quite genuine and belonged to his 
nature. Nothing gave him so much pleasure as to 
watch the swindlers of his secondary profession at 
work. We used to discuss poetry and painting, but 
above all the riddle of life, and on his part always 
destructively. It was a very school for cynicism, 
this little shop, where nothing, so far as I knew, was 
152 



An Old Friend 

ever sold and I was the only habitue. He had an 
adopted niece, aged about seven — a pert, pretty 
little creature wliom he spoiled utterly ; he had a 
complaining wife who had no patience with his 
treatment of his niece, his Byronic airs, his verbose 
sloth or his prevailing gaiety, and affected none. 
He also had a retinue of complacent servant-girls 
whom his tropes and flashy theories delighted. 

Such was my Byronic friend in 1887 to about 
1890; and I must confess not often to have thought 
of him since ; and then last week, on this flying 
visit to my old town, I saw him again. He was 
bending over a portfolio, but I knew his back at 
once. His hair had become white and a little 
thinner ; but everything else was the same : the 
ruddy cheek, the sparkling eye, always lighting up 
at the originality of some world-old denial or affirma- 
tion, the Byronic open collar, the Byronic necktie. 
He did not recognize me at first ; but instantly 
afterwards we resumed the intercourse of twenty 
years before ; although now it was I who was the 
older, not he. With him time had stood still. The 
only change in his talk was a tinge of embitterment, 
not that he had failed financially, but that his friends 
had left him. The complaining wife was dead, nor 
did his references to her dim his brilliant orbs ; but 
his adopted niece — it was her and her husband's 
hostility to himself that he found such a pill. The 
old burden, "After all I had done, too," rolled out 
once more, that phrase wliich summarizes so much 

153 



My Walks Abroad 

of man's dealings with man and perhaps more of 
woman's deahng with woman. 

He soon checked himself, however, remembering 
my ancient tastes, and clutched my arm. "What a 
world!" he cliuckled, — "what a world! I'll show 
you something — something to interest you. It's 
not far," and he pulled me along to the window of 
an old picture-shop. "Hush," he said, "be careful: 
walls have ears ; but just look at that painting there, 
that portrait. What do you make of that V 

It was a woman's face, obviously eighteenth cen- 
tury, of the period, say, of Ramsay and Reynolds. She 
glimmered at us through layers of grime and blister. 
"When do you think that was painted .^" he asked. 

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "1780 perhaps." 

He doubled himself up with wicked joy. "What 
a world !" he exclaimed. "Three weeks ago ! What 
a world !" 

"Nonsense !" I replied. 

"Truth," he said. "I know the painter." 

He again pulled my sleeve and we retired to a 
passage. He looked fearfully round and drew from 
his pocket a creased page of a magazine. It was an 
art magazine of recent date, and the plate repre- 
sented another eighteenth-century lady. Underneath 
was printed "Newly discovered Romney." 

He leaned against the wall and squirmed. "Same 
man," he gurgled at last. "Same man. I watched 
him paint it. What a world ! Lord, I don't want 
to die yet ! " 

154 



A "Fun City" 



VI. — The Princess and Men 

I was in Oxford Street, drifting slowly towards an 
appointment, when the dismal words "Fun City," 
in large letters, caught the eye over some derelict 
premises. Oxford Street is ordinarily so consistently 
businesslike and in earnest that I thought I might 
as well examine this frivolous stock-in-trade as any 
other, even though long experience has taught me 
how little the promise contains ; and in I went. 
You know what "Fun Cities" are: penny-in-the- 
slot machines, living photographs, fortune-tellers, 
football matches, try-your-strengths, and gramo- 
phones ; ninepins, ring-throwing, cocoanuts, sweet 
stalls; with a few more elaborate side-shows, all at 
a penny, those in this particular one comprising a 
forlorn negro champion disarrayed for boxing a lean 
and dispirited white champion ; a company of dwarfs ; 
a palmist ; and a troupe of wrestlers. All were to 
perform for a penny behind their grimy curtains, 
and iron throats were shouting the glad news. 

I was coming out in a state of dismay induced 
by so much noise and negligibleness when another 
metal larynx' urged upon me the duty of seeing 
"the most beautiful girl on earth," who was not 
only that rare thing, but also "a picture gallery in 
herself" — the Princess Cristina, in short — and, look- 
ing up, I saw a poster of a tattooed lady, fortified by 
photographs which brought in the evidence of the 
155 



My Walks Abroad 

truthful camera and suggested that, for once, the 
poster artist had not gone much farther than fact. 
This was an interesting discovery ; but there was 
something in these pictures of the tattooed lady's 
face, apart (I swear) from her eventful epidermis, 
which made its appeal — a touch of wistfulness and 
not a little grace — and, the entrance fee being within 
my means, I paid it, and found myself among a 
dozen men, who had, of course, been urged thither 
by precisely similar motives. 

The Princess herself was on the platform, shiver- 
ing under an overcoat, waiting to begin, which she 
could not do until the metal larynx was mercifully 
mute. She stood motionless, looking at nothing, 
and the camera had not lied. Or, if it had, it was 
on the other side, for she was more attractive than 
it stated. Her features were delicate and regular; 
her mouth noticeably well cut, although her lips 
were perhaps a shade too thin ; her eyes were at 
once candid and melancholy. The larynx stopping, 
she got to work instantly; stripped off her overcoat, 
revealing bare chest and arms, very shapely; and, 
in a Cockney accent with a transatlantic hint, began 
her speech of introduction. 

Her shoulders, arms, and what could be seen of 
her bosom were wholly covered with those blue-and- 
red designs that appeal to tattooers and tattooed 
and to no one else; dragons, ships, intertwined 
flags, true love knots, daggers, snakes, Buffalo Bill's 
head. These, one by one, she pointed to and ex- 

156 



The Tattooed Lady 

plained, with a mirthless humour and that want 
both of real shame and false shame which can so 
astonish and abash the onlooker, calling us impar- 
tially "boys" the while, and never looking at any- 
one individually. The glories of the upper regions 
having been exhibited, "Now, boys," she said, "I'm 
going to give you a treat," and proceeded to disclose 
her legs, which turned out to have practically the 
same patterns as the rest of her. 

But it was not the tattooing that was interesting ; 
it was herself. She was so utterly a machine — so 
detached and disinterested, and, as I say, mirthless, 
her wistful, sophisticated eyes never lighting to her 
tongue, and never caring to investigate a single 
spectator's face. Years of public exhibition, to- 
gether with the facetious or familiar comments of 
certain units of the many knots before her, had 
done their work, and men to her were men in a 
special sense of the word. I will not say enemies, 
but necessary evils : foolish, inquisitive creatures 
who had got to be kept their distance, and, while 
entertained, repelled. Watching her, one had the 
feeling that she was by far the best thing there. 
Watching here, high on her little platform, above us 
all, unique in the possession of these trumpery indigo 
markings (no doubt inflicted upon her early in youth 
by foresighted parents), the promise of displaying 
which had brought day after day. year after year, in 
the New World equally with the Old (for the tattooer 
obviously had worked with a cosmopolitan eye), 

157 



My Walks Abroad 

these curious little crowds of which I now made one, 
I reahzed suddenly what the prevailing expression 
on those refined features was. It was contempt. 
The Princess had summed us up ; she knew men 
through and through; and if there were any excep- 
tions (which was unlikely), was too clever to admit 
it. For the really clever people never admit ex- 
ceptions : they generalize and succeed. 

Any doubt there might be on this score disap- 
peared later ; for she produced a bundle of sealed 
envelopes, which, from the nature of their contents, 
might not, she said, be sold to ladies, and must not 
be opened inside the building ; and these she offered 
at a penny each with a portrait of herself thrown in. 
We all paid our pennies and filed out, eager, as the 
pretty, tired, and very chilly Princess knew, to dis- 
cover as quickly as possible, unobserved by each 
other, what we had got. . . . 

My envelope contained a piece of paper bearing 
these words: "Great respect from everybody do 
persons get that are born on this day ; they are 
open-minded, intelligent, and thoughtful, make good 
friends and partners, are very loving to the opposite 
sex." 



VII. — The Hofbrauhaus 

"Do you never look at anything but pictures 
when you go abroad.'^" I was once asked. The 

158 



The Hofbrauhaus 

question no doubt I brought on myself; and yet 
there ought, by this time, to be a certain weight of 
evidence in the other direction. At Munich, for 
example, one refreshes oneself for the next day's 
visit to the Pinakothek by sitting quietly at a place 
of entertainment watching the living Bavarian at his 
pleasures. The good Karl Baedeker makes you. On 
no account, he says, should one miss the Hofbrauhaus ; 
and although it is permissible to look upon some of 
his instructions as counsels of perfection, this at any 
rate I obeyed. The only difficulty about the Hof- 
brauhaus is finding it, for it is hidden away on the 
Platen, a street in Munich which leads nowhere and 
to which, in spite of the presence of this palace of 
conviviality, no other street seems to lead, except by 
accident. In fact, it is quite easy to overlook the 
Hofbrauhaus altogether, and to leave Munich, after 
weeks of toilsome adventure, under the impression 
that one has seen all, totally unconscious that all 
the time some half the population of that city, day 
and night, have been comfortably seated within the 
Hofbrauhaus walls, not only hidden thereby from 
one's gaze, but concealed even more completely in 
other ways, their bodies being invisible in smoke 
and their faces submerged in their mugs. 

I have great difficulty in describing this resort, 
because we have nothing like it. But I can do 
something. Think of the largest building you were 
ever in. Then double it. Give it three floors, and 
ffil it with tobacco smoke. Now you have a rough 
159 



My Walks Abroad 

notion of the Hofbrauhaus. It is as though one 
entered the Hotel Cecil (shall I say?), and on open- 
ing the door found oneself peering into the dark 
recesses of a hall measureless to man, in which sat 
thousands of artisans drinking beer ; and then 
climbed a staircase and found smaller rooms filled in 
the same way ; and then climbed again and opened 
another door and found another room like the first, 
only higher and brighter, where the middle classes, 
also in their thousands, or even possibly millions, sat 
smoking and chattering and drinking beer and then 
more beer. 

If that flight of fancy does not help you to 
visualize the Hofbrauhaus, I would add the counsel 
to imagine one of Ostade's tavern scenes modern- 
ized as to costume and multiplied to infinity. One 
difference, however, between the old roisterer and 
the new is that the old roisterer seems to have got 
very drunk, and to have preferred an inverted barrel 
for his table, whereas the new roisterer, as he is to 
be observed at the Hofbrauhaus, sits in tightly 
jammed rows at long tables, as though he were a 
director, and sends pint after pint pursuing each 
other through his astounding system, with his 
daughter on one side of him, and his wife on the 
other, and his old mother, maybe, opposite. 

For it is a family resort, this Hofbrauhaus ; it is 

both hearth and club and mahogany tree. It is also 

a concert-room ; for on one of the nights that I 

visited it I had to pay threepence admission, in 

1 60 



Munich at Ease 

order to make one of the millions who listened in 
rapture and perfect silence to the strains of a violin 
which emerged ravishingly from the smoky pro- 
found. In the intervals of the music I set out to 
count the mugs which my neighbours were empty- 
ing, but the task was too great, and I turned rather 
to the consideration of the differences between the 
MUnchener and the Londoner, which make it possible 
for the one to spend his evenings quietly, if extrava- 
gantly, thus, with his family about him, and a bound- 
less thirst blessing the board and never disgracing 
it (for I saw none drunk in this city), while the 
other, the Londoner, in a similar position, leaving 
his wife and children in their home, must roam from 
bar to bar, fuddling his brains, and hearing nothing 
but gramophones or mechanical pianos whose keys 
are depressed by no earthly fingers. 

Another difference between this temple of Gam- 
brinus and our own drinking-places is that the 
Hofbrauhaus has one tap only — the Hofbrau. If 
you do not like it, you stay away ; if you do like it, 
you consume it inordinately. It is brought by quick 
little women, far liker old and trusted domestic 
servants than the barmaids of Albion. Long may 
they flourish, these efficient and active Hebes ! 
Long may they make it an easy thing for forty 
thousand Bavarians to drink as one ! 



i6i 



Unlikely Conversations <:> <^ ^^ 

I. — The New Gaol 

THE Governor received me with that dignified 
courtesy which has ever gone with the control 
of such institutions. "I think," he said, "you will 
agree that it is well conducted." 

He took a huge bunch of keys from its nail and 
led the way. 

"Here," he said, unlocking a cell, "is a very old 
offender." 

I peered into the gloom and saw an Aberdeen 
terrier in the corner. Naughtiness was written all 
over him. 

"Sandy's his name," said the Governor. "A 
destructive maniac. He tears up everything he 
sees — clothes, papers, work-bags, carpets, hearth- 
rugs, even books. His last offence was to chew a 
presentation copy of Bryce's American Constitution. 
He is here for a week. We cover articles with eau- 
de-Cologne, whisky, and tobacco-juice to disgust him." 

In the next cell was a bulldog. 
162 



The Bad Dogs 

"Disobedience," said the Governor, "Won't go 
out for walks without a lead, and then pulls at it 
like a salmon. We fasten him to a crank, and he 
has to trot with it or be half choked for hours." 

In the next was a little black spaniel. 

"Refuses to be broken to the house," said the 
Governor. "A stubborn case. Otherwise a charm- 
ing character. Systematic lashings regularly was 
the sentence." 

"Do you find that punishment is a deterrent?" 
I asked. 

"Undoubtedly," he said; "but they learn slowly. 
One sojourn here is rarelj^ enough. Here, for 
example, is a frequent visitor," and he showed me 
an Irish terrier. "A cat-worrier. We deal with 
him by pushing stuffed cats charged with electricity 
into his cell. In the way they cure crib-biters, you 
know. But his spirit is stronger than his sense of 
pain." 

"Good dog .'^" I involuntarily said. 

The Governor was scandalized, and led me away. 
"Had I known you would so forget yourself," he 
said, "I should have refused you the interview." 



II. — Puck superseded 

He was in the opposite corner to me and for a 
while he read his paper. Then he looked out of the 
163 



Unlikely Conversations 

window, and then he began a furtive examination of 
myself and my belongings in that offensive way 
which one's fellow-passengers so often and so irrita- 
tingly employ. At last, after many false starts, he 
spoke to me. 

"You rarely travel abroad.^" he said inquiringly. 

"Very rarely," I replied. "But what makes you 
think so ?" 

"Your bag," he said. "It has no foreign labels 
on it." 

I perhaps showed surprise at his acumen, for he 
continued, very knowingly, in a half-whisper, leaning 
towards me, "But the converse isn't always true, you 
know." 

"What do you mean ?■'' I asked. 

"Why, it doesn't necessarily follow that because 
a bag is covered with foreign labels its owner has 
travelled abroad. For instance," he added, with a 
cunning look, drawing from his pocket an envelope, 
"I could furnish you with a complete Swiss and 
Italian route in two minutes, if you'd allow me;" 
and he spread before me a series of hotel labels 
ranging from Lucerne to Rome. 

"So you mean that you deal in these things.^" I 
asked in astonishment. 

"I do indeed," he said. "My business is to turn 
the untra veiled into travellers. There are lots of 
gentlemen who spend their holidays very quietly at 
home, after giving it out that they are going, say, to 
Nuremberg. Well, for half a crown I provide them 
164 



The Label Merchant 

with a good Nuremberg hotel label, and no one is 
the wiser — unless, of course, they are cross-examined 
too severely by one who knows that cit3^ Young 
couples in the suburbs are very good customers of 
mine. There is a lot of rivalry in the suburbs about 
holidays, you may have noticed. Every one wants to 
appear a little more expensive and venturesome than 
every one else ; but they haven't really got the money 
for it, poor things, so they come to me, and I plaster 
circumstantial evidence of Innsbrlick or Interlaken 
or Venice or Bergen all over their trunks; and they 
return from Rustington, or Hythe, or wherever it is, 
certain of a successful winter. They work entirely 
for their neighbours, do the young couples ; but 
there are lots of gentlemen who work merely for 
fellow-passengers in railway carriages and on plat- 
forms. It's them they want to impress. Human 
nature's very rum. It is through observing it that 
I came to take up this business. 

"Then there's another customer, who really does 
travel, but not in the style that he wants people to 
believe. In reality, when, for example, he stays at 
Lucerne, he puts up at some little cheap place 
without a name ; but he gets from me a Schweizerhof 
label and sticks that on in the train. You see V 

I asked him how much he charged. 

"Well," he said, "prices vary. In August, Scotch 
hotel labels are dearer than in July, of course, 
especially in the neighbourhood of the best moors. 
A Swiss set of eight I can do for a pound — half a 

165 



Unlikely Conversations 

crown apiece. The Italian set is dearer, and so on. 
When it comes to Russia and Greece, dearer still. 
India works out at about half a sovereign a label; 
but the big-game districts of Africa are really costly 
— ten pounds a label sometimes. There's not much 
demand for American labels, but Japans are a steady 
market. I've got a Japanese set here for a gentle- 
man who pretends he's there now — a dramatic critic, 
I believe he is — but he's really hiding in Hertford- 
shire all the time. He's due back soon, and he 
wants the labels to look well seasoned, and so we're 
sticking them on to-day." 

"But surely your clients must get caught out now 
and then ?" I said. 

"Not if they're careful," he replied. "You see, 
I'm always at hand to help them. I deal in picture- 
postcards of foreign parts as well as labels, and then 
there's guide-books, you know. No, if they get 
caught out it's their own fault." 

The train pulling up at King's Langley, he care- 
fully collected his stock of labels, bade me good-day, 
and got out. 



III. — The Secret Out 

For years and years it has been a mystery to me, 
and I hav^e no doubt to others, where the Post Offices 
get their pencils — those pencils which are of such 
i66 



Post-Office Service 

value that they are chained to the telegraph counter 
like the nail-brushes at a political club not a hundred 
miles from Northumberland Avenue. 

From what mines can such plumbago be excavated 
— plumbago warranted to make no mark save by 
intense pressure, and when intensely pressed to 
break ? I have bought pencils at every price in 
retail shops, but never have I found anything like 
these. They are, as the dealer said, "a unique." 

But now I know the secret, for I have met a 
public official who gave it away. 

"Yes," he said, "I am a specialist in the im- 
practicable, and as such am adviser to Government 
departments and railway companies. You have 
heard, of course, of the 'Corridor Soap' used on 
certain lines, the great merit of which is that it 
* won't wash hands'? Well, I discovered that soap. 
It took me a long time, but I found it at last. I 
was paid a handsome commission by several leading 
companies for putting them up to it." 

"Indeed ?" said I. 

"Yes," he continued, "and it was I who brought 
to perfection the post-office pencil. The post-office 
nib is mine too, made to my pattern by a well-known 
firm. Have you noticed the post-office blotting- 
paper ? " 

"I have," I said, with a groan. 

"Ah!" he resumed, his eye gleaming, "that was 
a great find. That comes from France." 

"From France ?" 

167 



Unlikely Conversations 

"Yes, from France. They understand bad blot- 
ting-paper there. And the post-ofl&ce ink," he 
continued, "you might think that became thick in 
course of time; but it doesn't. Let me tell you 
a secret," and he whispered in my ear. "It begins 
like that ! It's a kind of stirabout from the word 
go!" 

"No!" I cried. 

"I swear it," he said. 



IV. — The School for Waiters 

"We teach them," he said, "everything here. 
We guarantee to turn them out qualified to do 
credit to the waiter's calling. For example, to show 
you how thorough we are, here is our exercise-ground. 
That's where we teach them to walk. See, they're 
at it now. Not too fast, you notice, and not too 
springy. In fact, springiness is one of our betes noireSy 
if I may so express myself. We have an instrument 
for rendering the feet flat in those cases where 
Nature hasn't done it. But she usually does. A 
wonderful woman Nature, sir. 

"This room here is where the waiters' vocabulary 
is taught. It's a brief one, but of the highest im- 
portance. The chief work is to make them unlearn 
what they know. Many of our candidates come 
i68 



The Compleat Waiter 

liere with quite a flow of language. Epithets for 
everything. But we don't allow that, of course. 
There's only one adjective for food, and that's 
'nice,' and no man gets our certificate until he 
has ceased to use all the others. You may have 
noticed that no good waiter ever uses any other 
word — ' Have a nice grilled sole ? ' he says ; ' a nice 
cutlet ' ; 'a nice chop ' ; 'a nice steak ? ' That's so, 
isn't it ? All our doing. 

"There are other phrases, too; but very few of 
them. We don't want to burden the men's minds. 
'Coming, sir, coming,' — they have to practise that 
for hours. And then the stock reph^ to impatient 
customers, 'In two minutes,' — they practise that 
too. Some of them are very quick and get the 
whole vocabulary in a month or so quite perfectly 
Others take longer. 

"In this room," added my cicerone, "we teach 
them also to say quietly but effectively, after City 
dinners and other big gatherings, 'I'm just going 
now, sir,' 'I hope everything has been satisfactory, 
sir,' and such stimulating phrases. 

"Here's the cellar. This is where we train the 
men in shaking bottles. You see that young fellow 
there — he has naturally quite a steady hand, but 
give him a bottle of old claret or hock and it'll be 
like a thick soup when he comes to pour it out. 
He's our best pupil, but the others become good 
before we've done with them. There's also a special 
class for pouring out wine so as to spill a little We 
169 



Unlikely Conversations 

are very particular about that; and coffee too. We 
spend the utmost pains in teaching artistic coffee- 
spilling. Some gentlemen wouldn't know where they 
were if the waiters poured coffee neatly, so we have 
to be particular. 

"This is the auditorium, as we call it, where we 
coach the men in not hearing customers the first 
time. And I think that's all." 

I thanked him for his courtesy, and before leaving 
asked for the name of the restaurant to which his 
men usually went, to keep it as a reference. 

"None in particular," he said; "they go to all." 



V. — The Public's Privilege 

"Please send the manager to me," I said. 

The manager came, with the usual expression of 
surprised innocence and self-protectiveness. 

"No, there's nothing wrong," I said. "I merely 
wanted to talk a little." 

He inclined his head. 

"Why," I said, drawing his attention to the 
menu, "why this large type for the NEW of peas? 
It is now mid- July. Would not ' peas ' be enough .^ 
No one takes them out of a bottle now, surely ?" 

He shrugged his shoulders. "Our customers 
expect it," he said. 

170 



The True Explanation 

"It excites them, I suppose," I said, "and thus 
prepares them to pay the price asked — a shiUing. 
But why a shiUing?" I continued. "Why ask a 
shilHng for a pennyworth of peas ? You ask only 
a penny for bread and a penny for butter, and they 
have to be manufactured. Peas grow." 

He shrugged his shoulders again. "Peas are a 
luxury," he said. 

"Very well," I continued, "I will grant that. 
The profit is no doubt just — from your point of 
view. But look here," and I showed liini the 
morning paper, with an account of the glut of straw- 
berries in London — tons and tons going begging in 
Covent Garden — *2d. a pound in the streets. "And 
now look at this," I added, and showed him in 
large type in the menu — " STRAWBERRIES AND 
CREAM, ^2s." 

"Why," I said, "don't you give the public the 
opportunity of sharing in this accident of profusion ? 
Why not say 'Strawberries and cream, 6d.,' for 
example?" 

"Oh no," he said, "that wouldn't do. They'd 
take us for a cheap and common place. Prices must 
be kept up." 

"Then it's really the public that fix the prices?" 
I hazarded. 

"Absolutely," he replied. 

I suppose it is. 



171 



Unlikely Conversations 



VI. — A Financier 

"Yes," he said, "we were awfully stoney, but it's 
better now. We tided over the crisis all right." 

"Do tell me how," I said. "The last time I saw 
you it was hopeless." 

"Jenny had an inspiration," he replied. "She 
went to visit an old school-friend who was having a 
baby, and the thought came to her then." 

"Well?" I said. 

"Well, it's like this. If you have a baby and 
advertise it in the papers you get all kinds of truck 
sent you." 

"I know," I said. "It's a regular nuisance." 

"Oh, is it?" he replied. "Wait a bit. Look at 
these." 

He handed me three tiny slips of paper. On one 
I read : — 

"HIGGINSON. — On Wednesday, the 29th 
September, at 4 Wellington Road, W., the wife of 
Henry Noble Higginson, of twins, daughters." 

On another : — 

"MAYOR. — On the 2nd October, at 98 Orme 
Square, W., the w-ife of Robert Foxwell Mayor, of 
twins, son and daughter." 

And on the third : — 

"SOLLY. — On the 4th October, at 99 Richmond 
172 



Babes to the Rescue 

Villas, W., the wife of Adolphus Solly, of tri])lets, 
sons." 

*'How odd !" I said, as I returned the slips. "Two 
twins and one triplets. That must be very unusual." 

"Very," he said, "but not impossible. Not too 
unlikely for good art." 

"Art?" I inquired. 

"Of course," he answered, "all those are fakes. 
Inventions. But the addresses are real : friends of 
mine live there." 

"I don't understand," I said. 

"Why," he replied, "it's as plain as ninepence. 
These advertisements cost me six bob each, a sum 
which I had no difficulty in borrowing after I had 
explained the scheme. They go into the Press, and 
at once the firms that send out all the free truck 
begin to get to work. Here comes in the point of 
the twins and triplets, because the firms send twice 
or three times as much. Do you see ? Now I'll 
tell you what the harvest is, down to date : — 

"Seven bottles of an excellent beef extract, retail 
3s. 6d. a bottle. 

"Seven pieces of perfectly beautiful soap, worth 
6d. a cake at least. 

"Seven boxes of very superior violet powder, at 
say Is. 

"Seven pairs knitted socks, worth Is. a pair. 

"Twenty-one tins of assorted food for babies, at say 
Is., and an odd lot of patent safety-pins and things like 
that. Of course some of the people only sent things 

173 



Unlikely Conversations 

on approval, to be paid for if kept. The cheek of 
them ! But most were free, as they ought to be." 

"And what then?" I asked. 

"Well, Jenny unloaded the lot on young-mother 
friends of hers for three pounds, or over 200 per cent, 
on our outlay. Brainy, isn't it.f^" 



174 



The Provincial Editor's Letter-Bag <:^ <;^ 

I. — From the Vicar 

DEAR SIR, — I have read in the current num- 
ber of The Gazette the account of the opening 
of the new parish hall, and am pained and surprised 
to find how many excisions have been made. Surely, 
when one who is in a position to know everything 
and has some literary skill goes to the trouble to 
provide you with free copy, it is at once inexpedient 
and ungracious to abbreviate and distort. 

That my own remarks on the platform should be 
cut short is nothing to me; but I think it very 
hard that the admirable little speech of our Squire 
(which was typed expressly for you), who altered his 
dinner-hour in order to come down and deliver it, 
should have been so heartlessly condensed. He 
spoke for at least ten minutes, but all that you 
allow him might have been said in two. This is 
more to be deplored than you may think, for Mr. 
Bamber-Guy stands to Boreham Green in the 
relation of wealthy parent, and it is in his power to 
175 



The Provincial Editor's Letter-Bag 

make or mar the parish room. It would not in the 
least surprise me to hear that your cavalier treat- 
ment of his address has caused him to reduce his 
donations. 

Of Miss Pulham-AUways' singing I said, according 
to the duplicate copy of my MS. before me, "Her 
voice is both pure and resonant, and she rendered 
the aria with faultless precision and taste." I did 
not write this idly. The words expressed my 
deliberate opinion, based upon a careful study of 
music that has lasted many years. Moreover, Mrs. 
Pulham-Allways v/as seated next to me and was 
aware not only of my appreciation of her daughter's 
efforts but also that I was for the time being your 
representative. What, then, do I feel — and what 
must she feel — to read in your paper the bald 
statement that "Miss Pulham-Allways contributed 
a meritorious solo" ? 

It was with perfect cognizance of what I was 
doing that I inserted the name of the maker of the 
excellent bagatelle-board ; but your ruthless blue 
pencil goes through it without a thought. I am 
not one — as you ought to know — who does things 
without a reason. 

If ever a man has worn himself to the bone in a 
good cause and for no possible reward save the 
knowledge that he has done his duty, it is Mr. 
Pykelet, my curate. How natural and proper, then, 
that I should single him out for praise ! But what 
do you do ? You merely group him with half a 
176 



An Amateur Journalist 

dozen ordinary villagers who may have lent a hand 
to move a table, or done something purely per- 
functory, and say that they were "a willing band." 

So much for sins of omission, but what of those of 
commission ? Here we are on more serious ground. 
It is all very well, owing to exigencies of space, to 
condense a contribution, but it is a very diflFerent 
and graver thing to twist and change a contributor's 
meaning. This you have done more than once. 

I wrote, for instance, very thoughtfully of Miss 
Larcom's voice, that no doubt with practice it would 
greatly improve and be a pleasure to listen to. But 
what do I read in your report .^^ — "Miss Larcom 
aroused great and well-deserved enthusiasm by her 
charming morceaux." How do you know that.? 
You have no right to go behind the back of your 
accredited critic. Can it, I wonder, be true that 
Miss Larcom is engaged to your advertising can- 
vasser, as I am told is the case ? If so, we have a 
very reprehensible suggestion of nepotism at work. 

Again, I find that you say of Mr. Harry Wild- 
marsh's recitation that it was "received with roars 
of laughter." That, I regret to say, is true; but 
what you do not print is my opinion as to its 
extreme vulgarity and undesirability. 

I notice that you also say that Mr. Arthur Corney 
had done "yeoman's service in bringing the evening 
to a successful issue." I am aware of no yeoman's ser- 
vice (whatever that means) on the part of Mr. Corney. 
You doubtless have private reasons of your own, but 

N 177 



The Provincial Editor's Letter-Bag 

allov' me to reiterate the opinion that in such a 
matter as this the Vicar is more Hkely to be well 
informed of the relative value of each helper than 
you can possibly be. 

No doubt you will reply that a column and a half 
is long measure for a parochial event of the kind ; 
but permit me to inform you that this is not so. The 
opening of a parish room is epoch-making. Men 
who hitherto have been in the habit of spending 
their evenings in the public-house will now con- 
gregate here to engage in blameless pursuits, and 
nothing but good can follow. A new civic life will 
thus be set up, a sociability hitherto unknown in 
Boreham Green. Indirectly, if not directly, the very 
Empire must be the gainer. 

I shall peruse with interest any reply that you 
care to send, and meanwhile I trust that some 
means will be found to do justice, if not to Miss 
Pulham-Allways, at least to Mr. Pykelet, in your 
next issue. — Yours faithfully, 

Gerald Amberleigh. 



II. — From Councillor Scrase 

Dear Mr. Hedges, — I am venturing to send you 
a box of cigars to smoke during the festive season. 
They are, I think, not bad, and I know that you 

178 



Municipal Politics 

are one who can appreciate tobacco when you meet 
with it. May I congratulate you on your article on 
the proposed iniquitous diversion of the Charton 
Road ? It seemed to me admirable both in substance 
and manner, although, if a criticism might be found, 
it would probably bear upon the lenience of your 
pen and your too kind generalizations. But a busy 
man like yourself, with a thousand duties, many of 
them small and vexatious, to perform (and, indeed, 
Mrs. Scrase and I often marvel you can get through 
it all), and a new-comer among us too, cannot of 
course be in a position to know, as I, for example, 
must, with premises right on the present road, how 
utterly unnecessary and contrary to public interest 
this step is. 

You look at the case from the broad standpoint 
of a publicist ; whereas I, who have lived here all 
my life, see it also as a born and bred Eastburian. 
To me and mine, and I assure you to most of the 
town, this change would be a blow too severe to 
contemplate without emotion. Call us sentiment- 
alists if you will — there is no disgrace in that — but 
we, like yourself, are something more too. We 
stand for what is right and just against the new 
and predatory faction which follows Mr. Garner. 
It is therefore that I say, More power to your 
elbow ! 

The cigars, I ought to tell you, are of the famous 
1899 crop and are absolutely ready for smoking. 
But you should keep them in a warm place. If 
179 



The Provincial Editor's Letter-Bag 

you have a cupboard near a chimney, so much the 
better. 

With all the compliments of the season, believe 
me, dear Mr. Hedges, yours cordially, 

Simon Scbase. 



III. — From Councillor Garner 

My dear Hedges, — Christmas being on us, I take 
the opportunity of sending you a case of sherry, a 
wine which is, I am glad to say, coming into fashion 
again. So far as I am concerned it never went out, 
and my father before me was true to it too. 

If you would bring Mrs. Hedges to supper on 
Boxing Day it would give Mrs. Garner and myself 
very great pleasure, and we would have a jolly 
evening and forget for once that there were any 
troubles or differences of opinion on anything, or 
that there existed so trumpery an affair as this 
Charton Road diversion, on which I see you take a 
surprising and, for you, not too well-informed line. 

I wish you had consulted me before writing that 
article, as I am probably the only man in Eastbury 
who really knows all the facts. No doubt certain 
persons on the present road will suffer, but the 
public good is the only thing to be considered — the 
welfare of the greatest number. Moreover, Lord 
Aberley gives the land, and that* means much, 
1 80 



Municipal Politics 

especially when you remember how important is his 
goodwill to Eastbury as a whole. But this is talking- 
shop, and that I have no wish to do. 

Let me have a line saying that Mrs Hedges 
and you will honour us ; and, hoping that the wine 
will be to your taste, believe me, with all good 
wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, 
yours sincerely, Rufus Garner. 



i8i 



Tracts that took the Wrong Turning <::b. 

I. — What's the Odds ? 

ONCE upon a time there was a small tradesman 
named John Stone. He was an honest, hard- 
working man, who did his best to make both ends 
meet and support his wife and three small children. 
But, try as he might, custom left his shop, while to 
make things worse, his assistant robbed him, and 
he found himself one morning with only ten pounds 
between himself and the bankruptcy court. His 
debts amounted to over thirty pounds, and more 
stock was needed. 

In his despair he went for a walk, and chanced 
to meet an old schoolfellow named James Smith. 
"Hullo, John," said James, "why do you look so 
glum?" John told him. "It is lucky you met 
me," was the reply, "for I've got a tip for the races 
to-morrow which can't fail. Take my advice. Put 
your ten pounds on it." 

John Stone had never made a bet in his life and 
he was reluctant to do so now, but at last he let 
1S2 



Against All Precedent 

James persuade him, and the next morning handed 
him the ten pounds. 

All that day, until the news of the race reached 
London, John Stone was in an agony. He dared 
not look his wife in the face, and in his business 
was so absent-minded that his few customers thought 
he must be ill. At last he saw a boy rushing down 
the street with a paper, and calling to him he 
bought one and feverishly tore it open. His horse 
had won — at 20 to 1. John Stone had made £200; 
and that night James brought him this sum together 
w^ith the £10 he had wagered. 

John Stone immediately paid all his debts, 
acquired some new and attractive stock, and at once 
began to prosper; and he is now the owner of a 
row of shops. He is also a respected town councillor 
and churchwarden. 

In spite of all temptation to do so, he never made 
another bet. 



II. — Their First Drinks 

Henry Martin had been brought up by his parents 
as a strict teetotaller, and until his twenty-fifth year 
he remained so. Then one evening he went to 
a smoking concert and was induced, much against 
his will, to drink a glass of whisky and soda-water. 

183 



Tracts that took the Wrong Turning 

That was thirty years ago, and the taste so disgusted 
him that he has never repeated the experiment. 

George Dundas was also brought up as a strict 
teetotaller, being taught not only to look upon 
alcohol as poison, but upon those who took it as 
sinners. One day he was dared by a companion to 
drink a glass of beer, and rather than be called a 
coward he did so. He was astonished first to find 
it agreeable, and secondly, after drinking it, not to 
be rolling about the floor in a state of beastl,y 
intoxication, or lurching home to beat his wife and 
throw his cliildren out of the window. The con- 
sequence was that the next evening he took another 
glass, and has enjoyed his beer regularly ever since, 
and is now a hale old man of ninety-seven. 



III. — The Result of Petty Theft 

Thomas Sand and Arthur Wheeler were two 
village lads who lived near each other and always 
walked to and from school together. One day they 
noticed that Farmer Brown's orchard gate, which 
w^as usually locked, was open, and they peeped in. 
Just in front of them was a tree covered with 
beautiful ripe apples. They looked in all directions, 
but no one was in sight, and in a few moments the 
boys had shaken down enough apples to fill their 
184 . 



Against All Precedent 

pockets and were again in the road enjoying the 
plunder. Just as they turned tlie corner whom 
should tliey meet but Farmer Brown with his big 
whip ? He looked at the apples they were nnuiching 
and recognized them as his own. "Hullo, you 
young Socialists ! " he said, with a laugh. The boys 
grew up to positions of trust and are now J. P.'s. 



i8S 



Wayside Notes <:::^ ^^ ^;^ ^;:::y ^^^ 

I. — The Snow-White Lie 

HE is sixty-five years of age and usually looks it. 
A tall ruddy man, with a great shock of iron- 
grey hair, and, though walking a little creakingly, 
as sons of the soil must do in later years, he is still 
active and powerful, but — sixty-five. . . . 

Now sixty-five is all right if you have a good master 
and have been in his employ for a long time; but 
sixty-five is the devil if you are seeking a new job. 
And Old Jack, as we have thoughtlessly called him 
(Heaven forgive our want of prescience !), after 
seeming to be as deeply rooted here as any tree, was, 
three weeks ago, suddenly told that he would not 
be wanted after that Saturday. For how many 
years he had lived in this village and done his daily 
task on the same farm, I cannot say, but certainly 
for nearly forty, and never an hour off for illness 
in all that time. And now he had to go ; find a 
new master, a new cottage ; begin again. 

He tried near about, day after day, for a week, 
1 86 



Old Jack 

but to no purpose, and then began to extend his 
view, giving up all hope of remaining among his 
old neighbours, and one evening he brought me an 
advertisement clipped from a paper. "Would you 
mind answering that?" he asked; for Jack did not 
want to be beholden to his late employer for any- 
thing, and he is one of those fortunate creatures who 
can neither read nor write. 

So I answered it. I said that I had known Jack 
for so long; that he was sober, willing, agreeable, 
capable, and all the rest of it; and that he had been 
dismissed through no fault of his own, but because 
the farmer was making changes all round. And, I 
added, "he is fifty-eight." Last night Jack came to 
tell me he had got the place. 

His serious trouble will come when it is time to 
draw his old-age pension; mine, when I confront 
St. Peter. 



II. — Two Dreams 

Amid the welter of idiotic fancies that crowd 
one's sleeping mind, now and then will emerge a 
definite and not unsensible thought. Some dreamers 
may have these oftener, but with me their appearance 
is certainly less than once a year. Once, for example, 
long ago, I woke in a state of excited triumph at a 
revelation that had suddenly broken in upon me as 
187 



Wayside Notes 

with the light of noon. "That's extraordinary," I said 
to myself, "I must write it down at once." I have 
said this before and gone to sleep before I could 
get the paper, or on beginning to write have found 
it rubbish; biit this particular trouvaille was better, 
for the next morning I found I had written this : 
"Witches are composite like ourselves. Witches are 
both good and bad. There are no merely witches." 
Last night, how^ever, I did better than that (which, 
after all, is only metaphysics), for I dreamed a Sancho 
Panza proverb, and I claim for it such excellence — 
such all-round sagacity — that if it w^ere dropped into 
a collection like the late Ulick Burke's Spanish Salt, 
it would defy detection as an imposture. This is it : 
"There are two w^ords for everything." Surely that 
is wisdom ! The whole theory of party politics is in 
it, for one thing; and indeed all argument. It 
should pass into the language as a salient sapience : 
"There are two words for everything." And I made 
it up in my sleep. 



III. — The Compact 

"Pathos.^" he said. "I'll tell you something 
pathetic. When I was at Bart.'s I had a great 

friend, another student, named Lewin. That was, 

let me see, more than forty years ago. We were 

both devoted to music; I played the violin, he 
i88 



The Old Friends 

the 'cello ; and we spent a great deal of time at the 
opera. When we were through, I stayed on for a 
while as H. P., and Lewin went on a P. & O. boat 
as ship's doctor, and taking a fancy to the East 
remained out there. Well, when we parted on the 
night before he sailed, we made an undertaking 
that whenever we next met, and at all our future 
meetings, each of us would greet the other by 
whistling the opening notes of Beethoven's Eighth 

Symphony. You know how it goes " and he 

whistled it. 

"Well," he continued, "when we made that 
promise we expected to meet often, for he had then 
no notion of settling in Japan. But settle he did, 
and he came back to England for the first time only 
last week. I had heard from him now and then, 
and a brief letter came the other day announcing 
his arrival and asking me to dine with him at his 
hotel. 'Come up to my room,' he added. So I 
went. He was on the top floor, and as I approached 
his room a chambermaid came along and told me he 
was there and the door had been left open for me. 
Just as I put my hand to the knob I recollected our 
old agreement and, standing on the door-mat, I began 
to whistle. Funnj' I should have forgotten it till I 
was so near him ; but I had. 

"He made no response, but, hearing him moving 

about inside, I repeated it louder. Again he did 

not respond ; so I pushed the door open and marched 

in in full blast, like a drum and fife band. He ran 

189 



Wayside Notes 

to grasp my hand, shook it warmly and thrust me 
into a chair. 'But why didn't you whistle too?' 
I asked him. He looked at me blankly for a 
moment and then fetched an ear-trumpet from the 
table. He had become totally deaf." 



IV. — Spoiled Stories 

It is a melancholy experience to come upon an 
old and favourite joke badly mauled ; and, unhappily, 
as England becomes more and more in love with 
facetiousness, the experience is likely to get more 
and more common. One of the worst examples I 
have lately found in a sixpenny illustrated paper. 
It runs thus : — 

"The flooding of a Yorkshire mine had a tragic 
result, and a miner was deputed to break the news 
to a poor woman whose husband had been drowned. 
'Does Widow Jones live here.'*' 'No,' was the 
indignant lady's reply. 'You're a liar!' he said." 

This morning, after much search, I put my hands 
on the volume containing the original story as it was 
written by a master between forty and fifty years 
ago. I have copied it out : — 

" 'Yes, I remember that anecdote,' the Sunday- 
school superintendent said, with the old pathos in 
his voice, and the old sad look in his eyes. 'It 
190 



Mark's Way 

was about a simple creature named Higgins, that 
used to haul rock for old Maltby. When the 
lamented Judge Bagley tripped and fell down the 
court-house stairs and broke his neck, it was a great 
question how to break the news to poor Mrs. Bagley. 
But finally the body was put into Higgins' wagon, 
and he was instructed to take it to Mrs. B., but to 
be very guarded and discreet in his language, and 
not break the news to her at once, but do it 
gradually and genth\ When Higgins got there 
with his sad freight, he shouted till Mrs. Bagley 
came to the door. 

"Then he said, 'Does the Widder Bagley live here V 

" 'The Widow Bagley ^ No, sir !' 

" 'I'll bet she does. But have it your own way. 
Well, does Judge Bagley live here ? ' 

" 'Yes; Judge Bagley lives here.' 

" 'I'll bet he don't. But never mind, it ain't for me 
to contradict. Is the Judge in ? ' 

" 'No, not at present.' 

" 'I jest expected as much. Because, j^ou know 

Take hold o' suthing, mum, for I'm a-going to make 
a little communication, and I reckon maybe it'll jar 
you some. There's been an accident, mum. I've 
got the old Judge curled up out here in the wagon, 
and when you see him you'll acknowledge yourself 
that an inquest is about the only thing that could be 
a comfort to him! ' " 

That is by Mark Twain, and to mj^ mind is a 
perfect example of the art of telling a story. 
191 



Wayside Notes 



V. — How Poetry came to the Course 

"Now, ladies, if you really want something to 
do," said the owner, "name my three yearlings 
for me." 

"Oh, how delightful!" they exclaimed in one 
voice. 

"But remember," he continued, "that the names 
should be good ones. The year after next, one of 
them may run in the Derby, and no horse with a 
bad name ever won that." 

"Of course," said the first lady. "But who 
would give a beautiful race-horse a common name?" 

"Lots of people," said the owner. "There's a 
horse at this moment called 'Done in the Eye.' " 

The ladies shuddered. 

"You'll get nothing like that from me," said the 
second lady, "I can promise you. I shall find you 
a lovely romantic name, all melody and fragrance. 
What do you say, for example, to — to 'Tristram'?" 

"Or ' Hyacinthus ' ? " said the second lady. 

"Or 'Saladin'?" said the third. 

"Charming, charming !" replied the owner. 
"There's only one criticism I should make: all 
the horses are fillies." 

"Women's names," said the first lady, "are more 

beautiful than men's. I have chosen one for my 

filly already — ' Undine ' — the wonderful water-nymph 

of Fouque's story. Could there be a more magical 

192 



Job Masters 

name than 'Undine'? It will bring music to the 
race-card, poetry to the course." 

"And my choice is 'Thalia,' the Muse of idyllic 
verse," said the second lady. 

"And mine," said the third, "is the most fragile 
and exquisite of flowers — 'Anemone.'" 

"Right-0," said the owner, and wrote them down. 

A year later the fillies were running in various 
races. 

" 'Ere you are, sir," cried the bookmakers. 
"Eight to one 'The liar' ! Two hundred to a pony, 
'The liar' ! " 

"Sixes 'Any money' !" they cried. 

"Now, then," they cried; "here's your chance. 
Twelve to one against ' Undone ' ! Twelve to one 
'Undone' !" 



VI. - R. I. P. 

An acute French traveller wandering observantly 
through England once remarked that every town 
seemed to have several men named Job Masters, 
and he wondered that no confusion resulted. Alas ! 
a time has come, or is about to come, when no 
traveller, French, or otherwise, will ever say this 
again. For Job Masters is dead. The game is up. 
Where once was his stable is now a garage; where 
o 193 



Wayside Notes 

once was his horse is now an internal combusion 
engine; where once was his "fly" (strange but 
cherished misnomer !) is now a motor-car. The 
end may not be quite yet, but it draws near and 
nearer every moment. And being so near, and this 
being an age of haste and anticipation, let his epitaph 
be written : — 

Sacked to the Memory of poor 

JOB MASTERS, 

Who, patient as his great namesake, 
waited steadily to be employed, 
on no nourishment but a straw. 
He was always ready to drive anybody anywhere, 
in rain or shine, heat or cold. 
His horses were old and his carriages 
were older, 
but they were all we could get, 
and we had to put up 
with them. 
His watchwords were Livery and Bait, 
and he will be sadly missed. 
His end was Petrol. 

What an irony of circumstance it will be if, when 
the melancholy day arrives. Job Masters has a motor 
funeral ! 



VII. — The ''Whitebait" 

Stories of money-lenders are usually good reading 
— for those who do not happen to have gone 
194 



Lawj^er Ford 

a-sorrowing. A man to be a successful money-lender 
must also be something of a commander too. He 
must have certain of those qualities of shrewdness 
and observation that are the stuff of success ; he 
must be very much a man of the world. Such was 
the famous lawyer Ford, of Henrietta Street, better 
known by his trade name of "George Samuel," who 
died in 1868 after a crowded career as a racing 
man and financier of the gilt-edged needy. Many 
stories were told of him that would entitle him to 
a place in any study of those useful and unlovely 
buttresses of society, but the one that particularly 
pleases me is concerned with an occasion when he 
was a victim. 

George had a horse named "Quo Minus" running 
for the Ascot Stakes, and lie was there to see the 
race. He was there also to hand over to a client a 
loan of £7000, which he carried in notes of all 
sizes in his pocket-book, but which the client had 
declined to receive until tlie races were over. 
George, therefore, was standing by the paddock rails 
intent on the running, when a small boy leaped on 
his shoulders crying out, " 'Quo Minus' wins ! 'Quo 
Minus' wins!" Mark the cleverness of this. Had 
he said anything else, the money-lender would have 
angrily shaken him off, but such confidence in "Quo 
Minus," his own horse, was flattering. However, he 
did order the boy to get off, and after the failure of 
"Quo Minus" was a certainty the boy did so and 
disappeared, and with him went the pocket-book. 

195 



Wa3^side Notes 

Samuel, in his disgust and rage, sought advice from 
Lord Chesterfield, who knew most of the ropes, and 
he at once offered counsel. "Go to Canty," he said, 
naming a well-known loose character of the middle 
of the last century, who not only kept a gaming- 
house, but did a considerable business as a receiver 
of stolen goods. Off went George, therefore, to 
Canty, who welcomed- him with the remark, "I 
know what you've come about." "Do you?" said 
George. "Yes," said Canty, "and I fancy it can 
be managed, but you must give up all hope of ever 
seeing the whitebait again." "Whitebait!" ex- 
claimed Samuel, "what on earth is the whitebait.^" 
"Why," said Canty, "the little fish — the twenties 
and the tenners and the fivers. The rest I'll try 
and get back for you." And so he did ; but Samuel 
never ceased to regret the whitebait, even though 
he often told the story with gusto. 



VIII. — The Nice Things 

Denmark (which gave us Hamlet and Queen 
Alexandra and Genee) has had a very charming 
thought. According to the Copenhagen corre- 
spondent of the Daily Mail, the Danish Herbert 
Samuel lias hit upon the following means of pro- 
viding money for the indigent blind of that country. 
196 



The Blind Box 

The Postmaster-General has ordered (since he seems 
to be Master of the Mint too) a coin to be struck 
which bears the words, "The child seeing the light 
for the first time presents a tribute to the child who 
will never see it." These coins, or rather tokens, 
will be sold to the parents of all babies having sight, 
as lucky charms, for wliatever they will care to give, 
and the money thus acquired will go to a fund for 
those poor darkened others. 

Reading this, my thoughts travelled to a passage 
in a recent work on Italy, by Mr. Richard Bagot, 
which I copy here, since it is cognate to the piteous 
theme and has a similar vein of gold running 
through it : — 

"In the famous theatre, La Scala — which, with 
the San Carlo at Naples, is the largest opera-house 
in the world — there is a mysterious box immediately 
above the stage on the fifth tier which appears to 
be always unoccupied. As a matter of fact, how- 
ever, this box is never empty when opera is being 
performed. Screened from the gaze of the public, 
the most appreciative of all among the audience are 
following every note of the music from its recesses. 
Men and women sit in that box entranced — trans- 
ported temporarily into another world, a world in 
which they can forget that they are not as the 
majority of their fellow-creatures, and are able, if 
only for a few hours, to feel that no dark and 
hopeless veil exists between then and the rest of 
197 



Wayside Notes 

humanity. They are all blind, the occupants of this 
box. Some sixty years ago a Milanese lady, who 
was the proprietress in the freehold of a box in La 
Scala, bequeathed her rights to the then Archbishop 
of Milan, and the Archbishop made them over to an 
asylum for the blind on the condition that the box 
should for ever be devoted to the exclusive use of 
its inmates. 

"In order that these should enjoy to the full the 
intentions of the donor, the directors of the theatre 
accorded to the blind tenants of the box the 
privilege of free entry into the theatre — a grant 
in itself sufficiently generous, since in all Italian 
theatres an entrance fee of sums ranging up to five 
francs is demanded in excess of the sum paid for the 
place occupied. I wonder if any spot in the wide 
world contains so much concentrated happiness as 
this box in La Scala on an opera night. The blind 
are sent there in rotation, so that all the inmates of 
the institution may have one or more evenings' bliss 
in the course of the season. To them an evening 
at La Scala is an evening spent in Paradise." 

Now, it would be very interesting, would it not ? 
if similar examples of thoughtful and imaginative 
kindness from other nations could be collected and 
brought together in a magazine or review, or even 
a daily paper. The world cannot be too widely 
instructed in such deeds. 



198 



My Stores 

IX. — Accounts Delightfully Rendered 

I have discovered a new shop — or rather Stores — 
with a most ingratiating way of composing its bills. 
Not that any process (except a premature and 
miraculous receipt stamp) could make a bill 
essentially and au fond other than it is — a de- 
testable thing. But since apparently there must 
be bills, it is pleasant to get them made readable, not 
alone by the chance of discovering an arithmetical 
inexactitude, but for their own sake as — more or 
less — literature. 

As a rule I do not look at bills; but chancing to 
glance at one the other day, my eye met the follow- 
ing item : — 

"1 partridge that has been hung long 
enough to be suitable for Sunday 
lunch 3s. 6d." 

"Why all this.^" I asked of the chatelaine. 
"Yes," she replied, "isn't it odd? They always 
repeat my words in their bills." "And how long 
have we been dealing there .^ " I asked. "About 
three weeks," she said. "And you never told me!" 
I remonstrated. "In this grey world, you never told 
me. Let me see some other specimens, I implore." 

She brought them, and I was charmed. I read : — 

"1 dozen absolutely new-laid eggs, with 
the dates legibly on them, brown for 
choice ...... 2s.," 

199 



Wayside Notes 

and 

"1 really tender duckling (the last wasn't) . 4s.," 

and 

"A shoulder of Welsh mutton just large 

enough for four persons . . 3s. 2d." 

Such bills as these are not only reminders of 
what you owe, but of what you were. They are bio- 
graphical. 

"Splendid," I said. "Now we will really put 
them to the test." So I drew up an order which, 
among other things carefully' described, included "a 
pork-pie, about "2 lb., not the kind with crust like 
plaster of Paris, but a soft short crust into which 
the flavour of the meat has found its way." 

"There," I said, "that will beat them." But I 
was wrong. When the bill came in, in a neat 
clerky hand on the blue paper was written, without 
the faintest sign to indicate whether the writer was 
a humorist or a machine, this item : — 

"1 pork-pie, 2 lb., not the kind with crust 
like plaster of Paris, but a soft short 
crust, into which the flavour of the 
meat has found its way . . 2s. 4d." 

Who would ever choose to deal anywhere else "^ 



200 



The Fourpenny Box ^^i^ <^ ^:> ^::> 

I. — The Way with a Lord 

WHEN the time comes to pass under review 
one's roll of fortuitous acquaintances, many of 
us whose habit it is to loaf in the Charing Cross Road 
(best of thoroughfares since Holywell Street was tum- 
bled down by an immoral County Council) will find 
that the most amusing company has been fished from 
fourpenny boxes and dusty shelves. In this way a 
few months ago I met Joseph Brasbridge, and in 
this way last week I met Henry Melton. Joseph 
Brasbridge was a silversmith in Fleet Street, and a 
considerable dog when the shutters were up, dwin- 
dling, in his eightieth year, to a reflective auto- 
biographer (not wholly, however, lost to the taste of 
ginger in the mouth) under the formidable title 
of The Fruits of Experience. Of him, for the 
present, I say no more. He is already old in bottle 
and will keep. But Henry Melton demands atten- 
tion, because Henry Melton, of all of us, knew the 
right way of a man with a lord, and lords were never 
so under the microscope as they have lately been. 

20I 



The Fourpenny Box 

Brasbridge published in IS'^^ ; Melton, who was 
hatter to the late King when Prince of Wales, 
published forty and more years later, and called his 
book Hints on Hats, although its true value 
(which so often is not where the author deems it) is 
its hints on Melton. The hat part is nothing : you 
may get it in any cyclopaedia ; but Mr. Melton in 
relation to his patrons is everything. 

Mr. Melton senior had £100,000, and the son was 
educated to inherit it. But "a reverse in the will 
of Dame Fortune" ("that fickle jade," as he finely 
calls her,) made it necessary to enter business. 

"About this time [he writes] the successful career 
of the famous Mr. Moore, the hatter, attracted my 
attention. The fashionable position of his son, his 
four-in-hand, his general reception into good society, 
his reputation as a patron of art and belles lettres, 
pointed to well-earned wealth in trade as something 
worthy a young gentleman's ambition ; so I made 
up my mind to be a Hatter, and set forth, with the 
earnest enthusiasm of youth, on a career which I 
expected would lead certainly to wealth and fame." 

That was, I gather, in the thirties ; and with not 
a little sagacity for one who had spent so much time 
in expecting to be well off, the young man selected 
the Last of the Dandies — then still cutting a figure 
at Gore House and in the Row — as his first client. 

"With the dash of youth I at once threw my 
202 



Count D'Orsay 

bread u})oii the water, and wrote to the Count 
in as delicate a manner as I well could, stating 
my ambition as desirous of making even my 
calling associated with art and taste. By return of 
post I received a courteously worded request to wait 
upon the Count at Kensington Gore. Here I was 
received in the true style in which an exquisite 
might be expected to welcome an aspirant to taste. 
I stood before him, in my own opinion, the Ben- 
venuto Cellini of hats before a Pope — honoured in 
the greatness of my patron, but still, in my own con- 
ceit, a master of my art. I soon had reason for some 
diffidence as to my own merits, even in my own 
business, and speedily recognized the master mind 
of elegance and fashion. 

"The Count, upon receiving me, evidently felt 
resolved to test the aspiring youth who had ad- 
dressed him. He quickly requested me to point 
out what, according to my views, should constitute 
the essential merits of a hat. 

"On a table in the Count's dressing-room I observed 
some fourteen hats lying all ready for wear. The 
Count seemed rather pleased with my zeal ; and this 
kind reception, as well as his refined and elegant 
manner, encouraged me in the discussion which 
ensued upon the subject of hats, and ended in our 
mutually agreeing that the desiderata in regard to a 
hat consisted in its being light, although of a sub- 
stance sufficient to retain its shape (a requisite in 
which all foreign-made hats were at that time, and 
203 



The Fourpenny Box 

are even now, deficient) ; tliat it should be water- 
proof ; that it should be so made as to ensure com- 
fort; that the shaping and blocking and trimming 
were merely matters of taste and fashion of the 
period, but that the style of the hat should, never- 
theless, be carefully studied, as much as possible, 
to make the wearer look like a gentleman. 

"My replies generally seemed to satisfy the Count, 
who, in conclusion, said, smiling, 'You have 
evidently made a study of your business. But 3'ou 
have forgotten,' he added, 'that a hat should be in 
proportion to the height of the wearer.' 

"I ventured to observe that I could not regard 
additional height as an improvement. 

"'Quite the contrary,' he observed. 'It would 
render monstrous what was before distinguished. 
But a tall man, nevertheless, ought not to wear a 
low-crowned hat. It is an incongruity, and renders 
him conspicuous, and that, as I take it, is to be 
avoided. Again, a short man in a high hat is out of 
proportion ; it dwarfs him, as long hair does a lady 
who is petite.' 

"Upon this I ventured the remark that in such 
cases exactly it was that the eye of the hatter w^as 
required, for the wearer of a hat was not always the 
best judge of the style that best suited him. 

'"Some men make their own styles, Mr. Melton,' 
was the Count's reply, with a gentle smile. . . . 

"My interview with this great leader of fashion 
ended in my receiving orders that resulted in a 
204 



One Coat, One Hat 

brilliant success. No part of the Count's personal 
attraction was more studied by him than his hat, 
nor was it the less noticed and admired by the 
public. His taste was marvellous, and his quickness 
of eye in costume beyond all that can be imagined, 
save by a beau of the Brummell school. 

"As an illustration of the fact, his hats varied in 
dimensions to suit his coats. For his lighter, cut-off 
riding-coat he wore his hat smaller in all dimensions 
than for the thicker overcoats, especially that mag- 
nificent sealskin coat first introduced by him, and 
which now is somewhat general — indeed, has been 
imitated even by the ladies in their piquant winter 
jackets. 

"Need I say that the consummate acuteness of this 
idea of a distinct hat for a particular coat left a 
deep and lasting impression of its importance on 
myself .^ Indeed, the mere enunciation of it made 
the fact self-evident, that a hat should most assuredly 
suit the width of shoulders or figure as much as 
the face." 

It is hard to have to omit Mr. Melton's remarks 
on other of his patrons — the Prince of Wales, of 
whose tall hat a picture is given, "since many of the 
readers of this brochure may be resident in the 
country, in foreign climes, or remote colonies, and 
may not know the style" of it; the Prince Consort, 
who was "a great advocate for ventilation" and 
wore a modified "Anglesea"; the Earl of Harrington, 
205 



The Fourpenny Box 

whose test of a hat was to stand on it ; and even Sir 
Edwin Landseer, who sent to Mr. Melton for a hat 
of the Prince Consort's to insert in a picture, and 
was then so lost to decency as to place it in such a 
position that the maker's name was not disclosed. 

I have no room for the expansion of these pas- 
sages ; for it is the spectacle of Mr, Melton as the 
plain man in relation to a nobleman that is the 
interesting thing ; and to that we now come. The 
narrative, again, is Mr. Melton's. Nobody else 
could have written it. 

"Some time since I received a telegraphic message 
from the Earl of Stamford and Warrington to wait 
upon his lordship, who was then at Bradgate, his 
family seat in Leicestershire ; and with all speed, 
following in good order the magnetic compliment of 
his lordship's request, I arrived at the nearest station 
to Bradgate. Being strange to the locality, my 
mind was busily occupied in deliberating as to which 
hotel I should put up at, and casting my eye along 
the platform to catch a porter whose countenance 
would impress me favourably with the desired 
recommendation, my eye fell upon one of his lord- 
ship's six-feet footmen, who, addressing me with 
marked respect, said he was there to receive me. I 
thanked him, and asked about the hotel, when he 
said, 'I have been sent with a conveyance to take 
you to the house.' 

"At the house I arrived, duly welcomed by the 
206 



Half-way Pew 

butler, who paid me every polite attention. Orders 
were given to show me to my bedroom, where 
having indulged in a brush and my tortoiseshell, I 
returned to the reception-room, and to a glorious 
supper of the good things of Bradgate House, to 
which I did ample justice. 

"On retiring to my bedroom a cheerful fire wel- 
comed me with that spirting of the fiery embers 
which gives such a joyous charm to the log. My 
room, I need hardly say, was elegantly appointed, 
and afforded me a princely repose. On rising the 
next morning, I was strongly impressed with the view 
from my bedroom window, situated in the happiest 
position for a fine bit of park scenery. The day 
was Sunday, and hearing that service would be 
performed in the house, I sent a message to the 
Earl to know if I might be permitted to attend. 
The request was answered in the true spirit of 
amiable condescension for which the Earl is so justly 
famed, and in company with the household, of 
between thirty and forty domestics, I wended my 
way into the fine room in which the service was 
performed, and there a seat was most graciously 
placed for me between the household and the noble 
Earl and his beautiful Countess. I heard the service 
excellently read by the Rev. Mr. Paine, the Earl's 
private chaplain, who concluded it with a very 
admirable sermon. A scene of this character could 
not fail to be devoutly impressive to one, like myself, 
fresh from the crowded and miscellaneous worship 
207 



The Fourpenny Box 

of a metropolitan church assemblage. Nor was the 
effect lessened by my walk (after a capital luncheon) 
through the beautiful scenery of Bradgate Park, 
fraught as it is \ATth reminiscences of the ancient 
family of the Ferrers of Groby, and doubly famous 
as the estate for whose restoration Elizabeth Wood- 
ville knelt as a widow at the 'Queen's Oak' to 
Edward IV after the battle of Taunton, and con- 
quered her conqueror so far as to become his queen 
in the year ensuing. Here, too, lived Lord Admiral 
Seymour, who walked in this park with his wife 
Catherine, the fortunate dowager-queen of the wife- 
killing Henry VIII. And here, with Lord Dorset, 
her father, were passed the few happy days of the 
Lady Jane Grey. 

"My walk at an end, I retired to a dinner worthy 
of the Lord of Enville, and this disposed of, in the 
quiet coolness of the evening, I strolled over, on the 
gentle invitation of an accompanying cigar, to a 
remote and romantic part of the park, called 
'Anstey.' Here I looked in upon Reeves, one of 
the principal superintendents of his lordship's pre- 
serves. I w^as much charmed with the interesting 
associations of the cottage, and more than pleased 
with its inmates, who consisted of an excellent 
mother, with a family of well-behaved, nice children ; 
while Reeves himself displayed an amount of intelli- 
gence and education, as well as information, which 
gratified me vastly. He was w^ell up in the subjects 
of the day, and speaking sympathizingly of the 
208 



The Mushrooms 

demise of the Prince Consort, touched me so keenly 
as to prompt me on my return to town to send him 
a book which no man should neglect to read, The 
Speeches and Addresses of the late Prince Consort; 
a work, indeed, which I have, with much pleasure 
to my own feelings, presented to several of my 
friends. . . . 

''Another agreeable night took me on to Monday, 
when his lordship briefly gave me one of his usual 
liberal orders." 

That is the way to treat a lord, Mr. Melton 
knew it exactly. Sad to think that the creation of a 
great number of peers would impair this admirable 
attitude of homage. But I fear that it would. Not 
even Mr. Melton, with all his stores of reverence 
and his instant appreciations, could be quite master 
of himself if the nobleman who invited him to the 
country — to receive briefly however liberal an order 
— had been converted but yesterday from material 
which he had known in the rough. 



II. — Hell-Fire Dick 

I have before said that the time is never quite 
ripe to edit Lamb, and another proof of that 
statement occurred last evening when I brought 
P 209 



The Fourpenny Box 

home the Rev. J. Richardson's Recollections of the 
Last Half Century (1856) and came upon Mr. Richard 
Vaughan. For it was several years earlier that I had 
been in need of that gentleman, and could not then 
find him. 

Writing to Sarah Hutchinson in August 1815, 
Mary Lamb, in what is perhaps her most charming 
letter, describes a visit just paid by herself and her 
brother to Cambridge. "We set off on the outside 
of the Cambridge coach from Fetter Lane at eight 
o'clock and were driven into Cambridge in great 
triumph by Hell-Fire Dick five minutes before three." 
To these words, when preparing my edition of the 
letters, I could put no illuminating commentary; 
but now I know Dick well. Richard Vaughan, or 
Hell-Fire Dick, after losing his licence as the 
landlord of the Bell at Cambridge, owing to the 
effects of his popularity among the undergraduates, 
returned to driving, and tooled the up "Telegraph" 
from the Sun in Trump tington Street half-way to 
London, and brought the down "Telegraph" back 
every afternoon. He was a very horsey-looking man, 
"bony, gaunt, and grim," and his complexion was 
"indicative of continual exposure to the winds and 
the weather and to habitual indulgence in what 
is taken to keep the weather out." When not 
driving he was a sportsman of varied interests, of 
which cock-fighting was chief ; he instructed the 
young bloods in driving; and he possessed a rough 
and ready wit which found its way into the world 

2IO 



Struwwelpeter 

from the box of the "Telegraph" by the medium of a 
voice which a boatswain in a storm would envy. 

Such was the coachman who deposited Charles 
and Mary Lamb in Cambridge in August 1815. 



III. — An Outrage 

The question. Can a translation be a classic ? 
would receive an affirmative reply, I take it, on 
Fitz Gerald's Omar alone, fortified, if needful, by 
Shelton's Don Quixote, Florio's Montaigne, Jowett's 
Plato, and Jebb's Sophocles. Yet why climb so 
high ? A classic, after all, is a classic, whether of 
the slopes or the peak of Parnassus — whether for 
the young or the mature — and the question is as 
satisfactorily answered by naming the original 
English version of Struwwelpeter as any more pre- 
tentious work. Who made this translation (in the 
middle of the last century) that small Victorians 
might develop worthily into full-grown moral 
Edwardians and respectable grey-haired Georgians I 
know not ; nor can I examine into its closeness to the 
German original. Neither name nor fidelity matters. 
\\ liat does matter is that the text was established ; 
it became Scripture ; it was done for all time. 
Babel was again defeated; a German book rooted 
in the very soil that nourished the roof-trees of the 
211 



The Fourpenny Box 

land had become an English book rooted in the 
very soil that nourished our roof -trees too. The 
wear and tear of life sadly impair the memory, but 
few middle-aged and older persons in whose nursery 
Shock-headed Peter held sway would be unable to 
cap most of the verses in it still. 

Here is cruel Frederick, see ! 
A horrid wicked boy was he ; 

He kill'd the birds, and broke the chairs, 
He threw the kitten down the stairs. 
And, oh ! far worse than all beside, 
He whipp'd his Mary till she cried. 

What old Peterite could fail, on hearing those lines, 
to call up the picture, or, seeing the picture, could 
fail to recollect something, at any rate, of the lines ^ 
The work has passed into the national consciousness; 
it is on the canon. Who can ever forget the story 
of Harriet, the matches, and the cats ? And sup- 
pose the question were asked, What was the name 
of the magician with the giant ink-pot .^ the 
answer would be, of course, "Agrippa — tall Agrippa." 
And if the question were. What was the name 
of little Suck-a-Thumb ^ the answer would be 
"Conrad"; or of his corrector.'^ "The great long 
red-legg'd Scissor man." It is such familiarity as 
this which makes classics, and Struwwelpeter stands 
high among them. 

What, then, is to be said of anyone who, with all 
this weight of tradition accumulating through sixty 
212 



Debased Coin 

years at least, shall set out to translate Struwwelpeter 
afresh , retaining its pictures, but changing the text ? 
Not changing it much, but sufficiently to baffle the 
ear in every line. How characterize him ? For 
there lies before me a book to all appearance the 
real thing. That is to say, it has a pasteboard cover 
of the right size, and it is called Struwivelpeter, and 
Shock-headed Peter straddles upon it. But within ? 
Let me swiftly indicate the quality of this pretender 
to the throne. You remember the last four lines of 
the verse beneath Peter himself : — 

And the sloven, I declare, 
Never once has comb'd his hair ; 
Anything to me is sweeter 
Than to see Shock-headed Peter. 

Not very wonderful lines, maybe, but the lines that 
we have known and rejoiced in for half a century. 
Listen to the impostor : — 

Now the boys who Peter meet 
Loudly shout from street to street, 
"Get your nails cut ! Look, there's hair !" 
And the girls all rudely stare. 

The slang phrase is introduced in order, one must 
suppose, the better to recommend it to the juvenile 
taste of the day. Is that the way ? In the story 
of the Green Huntsman there are many slips and 
a steady inferiority. Thus, in the authorized version, 

The poor man's wife was drinking up 
Her coffee in her coffee cup. 

213 



The Fourpenny Box 
In the revised version. 

There in the window from a cup 
The huntsman's wife drank coffee up, 

— although the artist drew her not at the window 
but at the door. The sex of the hare's child is 
changed in the new version. 

But worse is to come. Conrad is now "Jimmy," 
and the Scissor man is merely "the tailor." The 
famous couplet, so swift and tragic. 

Mamma had scarcely turned her back, 
The thumb was in, Alack ! Alack ! 

is watered down to 

Mother's gone, she spoke in vain, 
Gugg ! the thumbs are sucked again ; 

while the abysmal complacency of the original end 
goes completely. In our memories are these lines 
engraven — 

Mamma comes home ; there Conrad stands 
And looks quite sad and shows his hands ; 
"Ah !" said Mamma, "I knew he'd come 
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb." 

The new version has it — 

When Mamma returns she sees 
Jimmy sad and ill at ease. 
There he stands without his thumbs ; 
This of disobedience comes ! 

That is to say, we lost the character of Mamma 
214 



Mrs. Thornton 

altogether — she is eliminated. Augustus, who would 
not eat his soup — 

Augustus was a chubby lad — 

is now Tommy — 

Young Tommy healthy was and fat ; 

and Johnny Head in Air becomes Sky-gazing Jack ; 
although Flying Robert (the first modern aviator) is 
allowed to be Robert still. But I close the pitiful 
indictment here. In every poem are changes, and 
all are for the worse. Yet the quality of the change 
is immaterial ; it is the fact of change at all that is 
wrong. A few things are sacred still. 

Seldom does one want one's fourpence back; but 
this is a case. 



IV. — Mrs. Thornton 

In The Sportsman s Vocal Cabinet, edited by Charles 
Armiger in 1831, is a description of the great 
race between Mrs. Thornton on Colonel Thornton's 
Vingarillo and Mr. Flint on Thornville, at York, 
on August 25th, 1804. The race was four miles, for 
500 guineas and 1000 bye, and 100,000 persons 
assembled on Knavesmire to witness it, or ten 
times more tlian had assembled to see either 
Eclipse or Bay Malton, those famous fliers. As 

215 



The Fourpenny Box 

much as £200,000 depended on the race, and at 
starting the betting was 5 to 4 and even 6 to 4 on 
the lady, and at the end of the third mile 7 to 4 and 
2 to 1. But Mr. Flint then took the lead and won, 
Mrs. Thornton drawing up, "in a sportsmanlike 
style," before the post. Her backers were thus 
depressed, "but the spirit she displayed and the 
good humour with which she bore her loss were 
so remarkable" — I quote from the York Herald — • 
"as greatly to diminish the joy of many of the 
winners." Isn't that pretty and impossible ? The 
gallant Yorkshiremen ! 

"Never, surely," writes the reporter, — "never, 
surely, did a woman ride in better stjde. It was diffi- 
cult to say whether her horsemanship, her dress, or 
her beauty were most admired — the tout ensemble 
was unique. Mrs. Thornton's dress was a leopard- 
coloured body, with blue sleeves, the rest buff, and 
blue cap." 

But what of the Vocal Cabinet? for this, you 
say, is all prose. Well, a poet made a song on the 
race which was put into the mouth of the vic- 
torious Mr. Flint, addressing his competitor. Here 
are some of its stanzas, in the same key of gallantry 
as that of the York Herald's article and the 
Knavesmire gamblers : — 

I denied you a friend to ride by, I confess, 
And for why ? — not for sake of the pelf ; 

But I wished to enjoy, in a case of such bliss, 
All that pleasure and honour myself. 

2l6 



A CI 



ose rinisl 



Four-fifths of the race, you must candidly own, 
You had the "whip hand," while behind 

I humbly pursued, till your nag "was broke down" — 
Then before you to go, sure, was kind. 

But, believe, to the fair I am warmly inclined — 

To be always polite I am ready : 
Tho' my horse was so rude as to leave you behind, 

I will ne'er run away from a lady. 

Mrs. Thornton's next race, on which the Colonel, 
her husband, had a bet of four hogsheads of coti 
roti and 2000 gumeas, and herself a bet of 600 
guineas, fell through; but a little later she was 
again matched, this time with Frank Buckle. Mrs- 
Thornton rode Louisa, by Pegasus and Nelly. Buckle 
rode Allegro, also by Pegasus and Allegranti's dam. 
Mrs. Thornton carried 9 st. 6 lb., and Buckle 3 st. 
more. Mrs. Thornton was habited in a purple cap 
and waistcoat, long nankeen skirts, purple shoes, 
and embroidered stockings. The race was two 
miles, and Mrs. Thornton, with the greatest skill 
and judgment, won it by half a neck. Half a neck 
in two miles suggests that perhaps Mr. Buckle was 
a gallant too; but the stewards of the Jockey Club 
seem to have instituted no inquiries. 

Colonel Thornton, I find, was Thomas Thornton, 
of Thornville Royal, Yorkshire, son of a soldier of 
the '45 and M.P. for York. He was born in 1757, 
educated at the Charterhouse and Glasgow Univer- 
sity, and on his father's death he gave up the Army 
and took to sport, not only hunting and shooting, 
217 



The Fourpenny Box 

but writing about those pursuits. In 1802 he and liis 
first wife — the lady of the saddle — visited France, 
and met Napoleon, to whom the Colonel presented a 
pair of pistols, and in 1806 A Sporting Tour in 
France was published, being the Colonel's letters 
to the Earl of Darlington, describing his adventures. 
France attracted him so much that after Waterloo 
he settled there, and called himself Prince de 
Chambord and Marquis de Pont. By this time, 
however, the riding Mrs. Thornton had passed away, 
and the Colonel had married again. His portrait by 
Reinagle is in the appropriate ownership of Lord 
Rosebery, and hangs at The Durdans. 

But it is the first Mrs. Thornton who interests 
me, and I should like to know more of her; but 
The Dictionary of National Biography cannot even 
record her maiden name. Why do not women 
ride races to-day ? one wonders. They do every- 
thing else. 



V. — Carlyle's Provocation 

The Taylor's Complete Guide; or, a Comprehensive 
Analysis of Beauty and Elegance in Dress, a slender 
work published in 1796, claims to do away for ever 
with badly fitting and unintelligent clothes. "That 
all the world may be improved," say the authors, 

2l8 



Rhetorical Snips 

who describe themselves as a "Society of Adepts," 
"and human nature receive its pristine grace and 
elegance, is the principal object of our ambition ; 
and by administering to the general good, and con- 
ferring an obligation upon industrious individuals, 
our ultimate end will be answered." 

This means, of course, that they were sartorial 
artists. Merely to cover nakedness was not their 
line of country for a moment ; but rather to drape 
with grace and elegance the human form, male or 
female, but preferably male. And not only artists 
but philosophers. Note how nicely the Adepts steer 
their barque through this passage : — 

"... the Eye will soon discriminate between 
Grace and Affectation, between the Elegant Contour 
and Dress of a complete Gentleman and the extrav- 
agant whimsies of a City Fop — these are great 
considerations in the article of Dress, the former 
being the result of Grace, Sensibility, and refined 
experience, the latter the extravagance of folly, 
under the sanction of the Whim of Fashion ; though 
we would have all our Brothers of the Trade under- 
stand us right, in this great particular ; although 
we may in these sheets have occasion to criminate 
the Luxury of the Whim, to shew what is opposite 
to Grace and Elegance, we by no means dis- 
countenance the Votaries of Fashion ; for we are 
well convinced of its Use and Benefits. The novelty 
of Fashion is the Nursery of Trade, the propagator 
of the Arts, and Field of great Employment." 
219 



The Fourpenn}^ Box 

Fasliion must, however, he suhonhiiafed lo the 
genius of I h(; artist : — 

"It matters not wJiether narrow or l)roa(l Backs 
are the Rage of Fashion, stand-up or turn-down 
Collars, short or long Waists, or whatever turn the 
cut of the Skirts may take, the ultimate end is 
to cut and fit well, taking care to harmonize the 
prevalence of the Whim, by assimilating the Parts 
with Prudence and Ease, having the following 
Maxim in view. That the very Pride of Elegance is 
collective neatness." 

The ground being thus cleared, the Adepts come 
to business with Section I, Chapter I, "Of the 
Theory and Practice of Breeches." Here they tell 
how to measure customers, and particularly — for the 
others are comparatively simple — how to measure 
those customers with whose figure "Nature has a 
little sported." Section II brings us to waistcoats, 
but again the ground must be cleared, this time by 
a series of remarks about the cliques that make 
civil war in the taylors' kingdom. 

"We write for the general good, and are conscious 
of meeting success in the minds and sentiments of 
the truly liVjeral ; and doubt not that thousands now 
living (who are humble in their pretensions) will 
rejoice at the opportunity of liaving such an easy 
access to the secret purlieus of tlie business, which 
neither time nor application could accomplish to their 
certainty and satisfaction. Tlie envious asseverations 
220 



Rhetorical Snips 

of rancorous (lisaf)poini('<I Men arc hciicaLh the notice 
of true and ^einiinc criticism. 

"Candour is the source of true genius, and will 
never disparage tf)(; fruitful efforts of any art; what- 
ever is contrary to this is generally direcrted })y 
spleen and scnrrility, and lias notliiiig to siij)[)orf it 
hut envy and malice. Su(;h ill-natnrc we despise, 
being too trivial for serious consideration as mean 
as calumny itself, the sonrce and offspring of sj)ite 
and ignorance. Having said so nmcli, we will pro- 
ceed to the manner of measuring the Waistcoats." 

"We mean no! by this," say the authors, after 
some remarks on coats and elegance, " to infringe 
npon the distinguishing (pialities in the making of 

a gentleman of either the or the ?" Who 

can guess wlial thos(; other allies in the great 
ent(Tpris<' of geidhunan-making are? Who cah fill 
those blanks? But you'll never do it: "either the 
fencing master or the dancing master." How 
completely things have changed ? There is no 
longer the slightest need for a gentleman to have 
reeonrse t,o any oru; of the trio. He can get along 
in a ready-made snil, dance no stcjjs, and never 
handle a foil. 

And now the Ade[)ts come to th(; ladies ;ind to 
some cliarnniig (courtesies. 'V\\(' drawing-room voice 
sil)ilates. throughout the section. They say: — 

"'I'he great ven<'i"ation vnc hav<' lor I lie Ljulies 
makes us a littU; cant ions how we arraign the incon- 
221 



The Fourpenny Box 

sistency of the prevailing rage and fashion of 
making Habits." 

Then they add : — 

"As nature has been so dehcately graceful in the 
formation of the Ladies, would it not be more con- 
sistent with reason and elegance, if dresses were 
made coincident with nature, to display the beauti- 
ful appearance of their charming features ? Fashion 
hath as many changes as variety, and all within 
the pale of symmetry and gentility ; the Ladies have 
no occasion to rack their fancies with preposterous 
distortions ; the whole arcanum of extravagance 
is totally dissimilar and foreign to graceful elegance 
and ease." 

One puts the work down, regretting that 
journalese has become the universal language of our 
time. Journalese has no character at all ; it is 
merely commercially useful. A taylor who should 
write of his art to-day like that would not get a 
customer, except out of curiosity to see an ass. But 
isn't it a nice book, and cannot one easily imagine 
Carlyle throwing it aside in order to begin 
Sartor? 



VI. — Two Invitations 

The literature of hospitality, so far as I know, has 
never been studied by the anthologist; but it is 

222 



Hospitality 

worth it. There would, however, !)e a terrible em- 
barrassment of riches, for it is a branch of writing 
in which every warm-hearted person can excel, 
while there is also an immense deal of the very best. 
In fact it is impossible to take up any man's Life 
and letters without coming upon certainly one 
invitation that extends two hands very alluringly, 
while when the man is of the large, generous habit 
of a Scott or a Dickens, not only fond of his friends, 
but proud (and pardonably so) of his Abbotsford or 
his Gad's Hill, the unexpected product of his own 
unassisted genius, why then we get something very 
fine indeed. But, as I said, the literature of hos- 
pitality is within the reach of every one with a 
hearth and a sense of sodality, and you and I have 
probably written quite as good invitations — at any 
rate for a line or so — as Horace, or Pliny, or Victor 
Radnor himself, because the impulse has been 
equally true and the friendliness equally cordial. 

The first printed invitation to attract my notice 
occurred in one of Jacob Abbott's Franconia books. 
It was in rhyme, and the lines, which have never left 
my memory, are these : — 

Come as early as you can, 
And stay till after tea. 

I read those first — or heard them read — about forty 

years ago. And yesterday I found in an odd volume 

of the Derbyshire Archaeological Society's collections 

my latest example of printed invitation — the letter 

which has, indeed, suggested these remarks. It was 

223 



The Fourpenny Box 

written by Sir John Statham, of Wigwell, to the 
Hon. Charles Stanhope, of Elvaston, who must have 
been a very dehghtful guest wherever he went, 
judging by the figure he cuts in Walpole's letters 
(Walpole could write an invitation too !) and in Sir 
Charles Hanbury-Williams's pleasant light verse. 
But the invitation is attractive not only for the 
genuineness of its writer's desire to have Stanhope 
at ease under his roof, but for its description of an 
English country house on broad lines in the middle 
of the eighteenth century. 

Here it is, just as it was written, country-house 
spelling and all; the date is probably about 
1740-50 : — 

"Dear Sir, — I was uneasy to leave you, but night 
at hand, I almost overtook Sir N. I did not drive 
up to him, but went straite home. I begun to con- 
sider how to engage you to come hither. If I cu'd 
form a delicious place by poetical description I wu'd 
do it to intice you, but I'll give you a plain natural 
description, & then you'll not be deceived, since 
youve seen into nature as far as any man. This was 
the cheif seate of the great Abbot of Darleigh ; I 
stand in clear air in the region of Health, am not 
confined, for am above 7 miles in circumference, 
a Mann'' without one foot of any one's interfering. 
In that district is all the convenience of life. Wood, 
Coal, Corn of all sorts, Park Venison, a Warren for 
Rabbits, Fish, Fowl, in the uttermost perfection, 
224 



The Joys of Wigwell 

exempted from all Jurisdiction, no Bishops, Priests, 
Proct'*^, Apparato^^, or any such last mentioned 
Vermine can breath here. 

"Our way of life here is, Every one does that wh. 
is right in his own eyes, go to bed, sit up, rise early, 
lie late, all easy, only we are confined to meet at 
breakfast, and then order by agreem* what's for 
dinner; the pastures are loaded with good Beif & 
Mutton, the dove-coats with pidgeons, the Mews 
with partridges, the Canals and Steues with excellent 
fish, and the barne doores with the finest white, 
plump Phesant fowles, out of those you order your 
dayly entertainm . After this, if you're for shooting, 
Moor game, partridges, Wild Ducks, &c at door; if 
exercise, a good bowling green & many long walks; 
is reading, a library ; if walking, a dry Park, with a 
delicious nut wood, full of singing birds, turtles and 
Guinea hens, a delicate Eccho, where musick sounds 
charmingly. In it are labarinths, statues, arbors, 
springs, grottos & mossy banks, in the mittls a large 
clear fish Pond with a draw bridge and Close Arbor, 
in the water a Cellar for choice liquor, & the whole 
stow'd full of nimphs kind & obliging without art or 
designe more than Love for Love. 

"There's about 30 families in the liberty, & in 
every house you may discerne some good blood. If 
retirement be irksome, on notice to Wirksworth 
theres loose hands. Gentlemen, Clergymen, &c ever 
ready at any hour & stay just as long as you'd have 
'em and no longer & easy to be told so. This is 
Q 225 



The Fourpenny Box 

really a genuine and true description of this place & 
way of life if you'l come and try it & use it as your 
own, as the master is intirely yo''^. I do think 
you'd say as the first Duke of D. s^, the 3 days 
he was j'^early lost in Needwood forest, those were 
the only days wherein he tasted life. If rainy 
weather confines you, I have a library & the famous 
Chimist M^ Harris to amuse you with experiments 
& a Playwright author of some Comedies to divert 
you. And as I know you rather delight in giving 
life than taking it away your visit would give new 
life yo D"* S yr most &f;. J. S." 

After reading that, I turned once again to the 
gentle, affectionate lines of a simpler and later host 
— A. C. Dick, the Scottish lawyer — to his friend, 
Dr. John Brown, a hundred and more years after. 
How different is the manner ! — 



O speed your coming ! — Though its charms be few, 

The place will please you, and may profit too ; 

My house, upon the hillside built, looks down 

On a neat harbour and a lively town. 

Apart, 'mid screen of trees, it stands, just where 

We see the popular bustle, but not share. 

Full in our front is spread a varied scene — 

A royal ruin, grey or clothed with green, 

Church spires, tower, docks, streets, terraces, and trees, 

Backed by green fields, which mount by due degrees 

Into brown uplands, stretching high away 

To where, by silent tarns, the wild deer stray. 

Below, with gentle tide, the Atlantic sea 

Laves the curved beach, and fills the cheerful quay . . . 

226 



Alluring Couplets 

Lo ! that high officer, big Kate the cook, 
With brow all puckered, and most studious look ; 
She strictly meditates your table fare — 
Hence her staid gait, and hence her anxious air. 
Pro\adent soul ! already she has bound. 
In solemn treaty, half the country round, 
The best of barns, byres, shops, and stands, and stalls, 
To answer prompt her culinary calls : 
New milk, fresh butter, tender fowls, fresh eggs — 
Beef, mutton, veal, in chops, steaks, loins, and legs, 
Saddles and breasts — with fish of fin and shell, 
Hams, tongues, game, venison, more than I can tell ; 
Besides, whate'er the grocery or the field, 
Of spice, preserves, sauce, roots, fruits, stocks may yield — 
All are bespoke. — With these, and with her skill, 
Native, or learned from Soyer's Oracle, 
She waits the day — all hopeful she may share 
A festal triumph — lolling on your chair, 
(While from the table Mary bears away 
The ruined feast) may hear you loudly say, 
With smacks emphatic — "I have dined to-day ! " . . . 

And I myself have looked into a bin 
Of glass-bound brandy, whiskey, rum, and gin : 
Of these, and those, different, though like in shape, 
Dear prisoned spirits of th' impassioned grape. 
Have noted which for you to disenthral. 
And some fresh claret bought to crown the festival. 

Here we have two kinds of host very clearly 
portrayed — the ostentatious and the modest. But 
both wanted their guest, and that after all is the 
main thing. 



227 



The Fourpenny Box 



VII. — Trifling with the Doctor 

To find a new parody of Dr. Johnson is not 
easy; but I have done so. It is in an odd volume 
of The Wifs Foundling Hospital — an exercise in the 
Hebridean manner describing the great lexicographer 
in Ireland (where he never was). 

The author was Robert Jephson, born in 1736, a 
Dublin wit and the friend in London of Johnson, 
Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds, and Horace Walpolc. 
On becoming Master of the Horse to Viscount 
Townshend, then Lord Lieutenant, Jephson returned 
to Dublin and took to squibs and plays. His chief 
drama was Braganza, produced at Drury Lane in 
1775, and his adaptation of The Castle of Otranto 
was successful too. He sat in the Irish Parliament, 
and died in 1803. 

Colonel Marlay, who cuts such a grotesque figure 
in the narrative, is more like one of the curious 
Irishmen of whom Amory wrote in that strange, 
wilful book, John Buncle, but I feel sure he would be 
found to be real enough and that the whole purpose 
of the parody was to make him, more than anyone, 
laugh. Dean Marlay, his brother, was the uncle of 
Henry Grattan, and after being Dean of Ferns be- 
came Bishop of Waterford. He knew Johnson well, 
belonged to the Literary Club, and was famous for 
his humour. It was he who, when his coachman 
was asked to get some water from the well and 
228 



A Good Parody 

refused on the grounds that liis business was to 
drive and not run errands, tohl him to put the 
pi teller in the carriage and drive for the water ; 
whieli he did several times : a pleasantry ciuite in 
the manner of Swift. The father of the Marlays 
was the Chief Justice of Ireland. 

Now for the parody, which describes a day's excur- 
sion from Dublin to Celbridge, the home of Colonel 
Marlay, his companions being two ladies (one of 
them Mrs. Jephson) and the Dean. Here is a good 
passage : — 

"Though we passed with a rapid velocity over 
little more than three leagues of high road to 
Celbridge, I observed many stately mansions, many 
well-disposed enclosures, and more towering planta- 
tions than any eye but that of a native of Scotland 
could discover in the black circumference of the 
whole Caledonian horizon. The pleasure I received 
from the transient contemplation of such scenes 
was often interrupted by the sight of tattered 
mendicants, who crawled from their hamlets of mud 
on the wayside to howl for charity or to gaze in torpid 
suspension at the ordinary phenomenon of a passing 
equipage. National reflections are always illiberal, 
and often ill founded ; the poverty of the lower 
class of people in Ireland is generally imputed to 
laziness, but sagacity will not rest satisfied with 
such a solution, especially when it is considered 
that the risque of a halter is intuitively preferable 
229 



The Fourpenny Box 

to the certainty of famine, and that the rags of 
these miserable bipeds might be mended with less 
trouble than they are worn, and in a shorter time 
than, if they are shaken off, they can again be 
indued." 

The carriage being overset by pigs — while the 
party were engaged in song, passing from anthems 
to the Beggar s Opera — the Doctor had an oppor- 
tunity of conversing with a wayside innkeeper, who 
thus described his prospective host : — 

*' The Colonel, he told me, had long served in 
the Army with great reputation, and had quitted it 
m some disgust, or to have more leisure for the 
business of agriculture, in which he takes great 
delight and is very skilful. His clothing was of 
goats' skins, fastened together with leather thongs, 
and girt round the middle by a sash, which he had 
worn in all the late wars. Since his retirement he 
had never shaved his beard, which hung below his 
waist, and was quite white, though his age was but 
little on the dusky side of fifty. His love of seques- 
tration being generally known, his gate was seldom 
besieged with idle visitors, and many were deterred 
from approaching it by fear of a twelve-pounder 
planted at the orifice of a side wall, commanding 
the entrance to the mansion ; this piece of ordnance, 
being loaded up to the muzzle with boiled potatoes, 
spontaneously discharged its vegetable ammunition 
230 



Colonel Marlay 

in the faces of all who laid hold of his knocker 
without business or invitation." 

Upon meeting the Colonel, the Doctor found that 
he had been somewhat misinformed. But I must 
quote : — 

"By comparing the authenticity of ocular knowl- 
edge with the fallaciousness of legendary rumour, 
conviction will at last find her sober medium between 
the dangerous austerity of heterodox rejection and 
the despicable acquiescence of passive credulity. 
The beard excepted, which hung thick, long, and 
albescent below his breast, there was no circumstance 
of singularity in the Colonel's appearance. He wore 
his hair in the military fashion, tied behind with a 
ribbon ; a bright garnet-coloured cloth, ornamented 
with a well-fancied brass button, was his superior 
tegument; over a tunick of silk proper for the 
solstitial season, and elegantly wrought in the 
tambour with variegated embroidery of flowers and 
foliage; from below the genual articulation to the 
sucated division of the body he was covered with 
flesh-coloured Indian linen of a tenuity almost 
transparent, through which the contour of femoral 
rotundity filled the eye with a satisfactory plump- 
ness." 

The scenery of Celbridge gave the Doctor much 
satisfaction : so much so that he became senti- 
mental : — 

231 



The Fourpenny Box 

"The lively sallies of my companions of the way, 
poignant without malice, and frolicksome without 
fatuity, had occasioned some paroxysms of hilarity, 
that bordered upon turbulence, but these spasms of 
the mind were immediately tranquillised by the 
placidness of the scene before me. I felt pleasure 
without irritation, and in the sedateness of content- 
ment, lost all appetite for the delirium of extasy. 
I could not, indeed, forbear laying hold of the fair 
hand of one of the ladies, and crying out with the 
enamoured Gallus, 

Hie gelidi fontes, hie moUia prata Lycoris : 
His nemus : hie ipso tecum eonsumerer aevo. 

My Lycoris, seeming to conceive the full force of 
this passionate distich, with an amiable subrision of 
countenance, led me forward to a spot at no great 
distance, called the island." 

This island, in the Liffey, belonged once to Mrs. 
Vanhomrigh, Swift's Vanessa. Johnson says : — 

"Whether it was mentioned to me seriously by 
Dean Marlay, or was only the extemporaneous 
effusion of female pleasantry, I cannot now precisely 
determine, but I think I heard that Vanessa, when 
mistress of Celbridge, had put down a laurel for a 
very brilliant couplet, of which Doctor Swift for her 
own vanity told her she was the subject and he the 
author. Had the subsequent possessors of Celbridge, 
with counteractive industry, deracinated a laurel for 
232 



The Saviour Cow 

every distich published by his posthumous editors, 
disgraceful to the memory of that singular genius, 
the island of Celbridge would be destitute of a 
laurel." 

While pondering on the island, the narrator fell 
into the Liffey, and would have been drowned but 
for retaining his presence of mind until a cow 
chanced to pass him on its way to the other shore. 
Johnson tells us that he 

"laid hold on that part of the animal which is loosely 
pendent behind, and is formed by a continuation of 
the vertebrae ; in this manner I was safely conveyed 
to a fordable passage, not without some delectation 
from the sense of progress without effort on my part, 
and the exhilarating approximation of more than 
problematical deliverance. ... As the cutaneous 
contact of irrigated garments is neither pleasant nor 
salubrious, I was easily persuaded by the ladies to 
divest myself of mine; Colonel Marlay obligingly 
accommodated me with a loose covering of camblet ; 
I found it commodious and more agreeable than 
the many compressive ligatures of modern drapery. 
That there might be no violation of decorum, I 
took care to have the loose robe fastened close 
before with small cylindrical wires, which the dainty 
fingers of the ladies easily removed from their own 
dress, and inserted into mine at such proper intervals 
as to leave no aperture that could awaken the suscep- 

233 



The Fourpenny Box 

tibility of temperament, or provoke the eachinnations 
of levity." 

So ends this jeii d' esprit, which must have given 
great delight to certain Dublin readers "in the 
know." But who really made the journey, and 
why it added to the joke to make him write like 
the great lexicographer, I suppose we may never 
discover. Meanwhile of Colonel Marlay one wishes 
to hear more. 



VIII. — Friends 

"I picked up to-day," said the Doctor, "a curious 
old book of travels and anecdotes, in which the writer 
develops the theory that "twenty good acquaintances 
are the change for a friend ' ; that is to say, that one 
is as well off with twenty silver shillings as a golden 
pound. The analogy will not of course hold good, 
because you can do exactly the same with twenty 
shillings as with a sovereign, whereas you cannot do 
the same with twenty acquaintances as with one 
friend, since they are not friends." 

"It depends," said A., "on what one wants. In 
health and prosperity twenty acquaintances might 
be more amusing and companionable than a friend ; 
but in illness or adversity they would certainly be 
disappointing, and they might be a nuisance." 

"How would you define a friend.^" B. asked. 
234 



Definitions 

"I .should define him," said A., "as one who 
although he knows your bad side still likes you." 

"And whom, although you know his bad side, 
you still Hke ?" 

"Of course. As I like you." 

"Well, in that case," said B., "I don't see how 
one can talk of acquaintances making up for him at 
all. He is too different, too distinct." 

"It's a good word," said C, "it's a pity to abuse 
it. Rival counsel who refer scathingly to their 
'learned friend' make me furious." 

"What was your idea of a friend, Doctor.?" 
asked B. 

"I don't think I had thought," he answered. "I 
suppose in a vague way I knew it was one to whom 
one could give oneself away safely." 

"Not a bad definition," said C, "would be: one 
who comes in reply to telegrams." 

"Yes," said D., "or one who can be counted upon 
to stay behind and pay the waiter." 

"Tell us more about your book," said A. 

"It is by a Frenchman," said the Doctor, " who 
wrote between 1775 and 1805. A diplomatist. A 
kind of moral Casanova, moving from Court to Court 
gathering anecdotes instead of victims. He knew 
every one — from the great Chatham to Voltaire 
Amusing anecdotes of highwaymen have always 
been attractive to me. Here is one, of a certain 
artist in that genre named Boulter, who was hanged 
in 1778 : — 

235 



The Fourpenny Box 

**It was said of him, among other things, that one 
day riding on horseback on the high-road, he met a 
young woman who was weeping, and who appeared 
to be in great distress. Touched with compassion, 
he asked what was the cause of her affliction; when 
she told him, without knowing who he was, that a 
creditor, attended by a baihff, had gone to a house 
which she pointed out, and had threatened to take 
her husband to prison for a debt of thirty guineas. 
Boulter gave her the thirty guineas, telling her to 
go and pay the debt, and set her husband at liberty; 
she ran off, loading the honest gentleman with her 
benedictions. Boulter, in the meantime, waited on 
the road till he saw the creditor come out, he then 
attacked him and took back the thirty guineas, 
besides everything else tliat he had about him." 

"Such a proceeding," said the Doctor, "must put 
the celestial Bench in a serious dilemma. The man 
had been good to the poor girl; that should count 
in his favour. But he had robbed; that should 
count against him. But his booty was his own loan ; 
that was not far removed from justice. But he took 
everything else too; that was robbery, no doubt. 
All the same, the drying of the poor girl's tears has 
to count. 'I have known,' the traveller continues, 
'many persons who have been robbed in England. 
All agree in doing justice to the respectful behaviour 
which these robbers showed to those whom they put 
under contribution.' 

236 



Mrs. Yates 

"His meeting with a famous actress of that day- 
was amusing. It was in Paris, and he had gone 
alone to the theatre : — 

"I seated myself in one of the boxes, which was 
rather dark ; there was nobody in it but a lady and 
her daughter, and a man whom I took for the 
husband. They were conversing in English, and 
were making their remarks upon the actors. The 
lady asked me some questions in bad French, and I 
answered her in English. She seemed delighted at 
being able to converse in her own language, and 
begged me to tell the names of all the actors 
and actresses who were in the piece. We also talked 
about the English theatre. She asked me what I 
thought of Garrick, Mrs. Gibber, and Mrs. Pritchard ; 
I told her I thought them excellent, and gave her 
my reasons. 

"She approved of my judgment, and asked me 
also what I thought of Mrs. Yates. As for her, I 
told her, I thought her only a middling performer. 

" 'What are her defects ?' 

"'She wants mind; she mistakes one passion for 
another ; she is in a rage when she should be 
weeping.' 

** *Is it long since you saw her V 

" *I saw her last Tuesday in Zara.' 

" 'But tell me another instance.' 

"I mentioned two or three. 

" 'And how should those parts be performed?' 

237 



The Fourpenny Box 

"'I cannot tell: I am no actor; but we may be 
able to perceive a part is not well performed without 
being able to play it properly oneself.' 

"Perceiving, however, the warmth with w^hich 
the lady defended Mrs. Yates, I was desirous of 
recanting, or at least softening the severity of my 
criticism ; but she reminded me of what I had said 
before, and I endeavoured to justify my assertions. 
By this time the husband had joined us; and both 
the young lady and he paid the greatest attention 
to the conversation, but did not take any part 
in it. 

"At last, the play concluded, I gave my hand to 
the lady to assist her out of the box, and, as I took 
leave of her, I looked at her by the light, and per- 
ceived that it was Mrs. Yates herself that I had 
been all the time talking to. I did not let them see 
that I knew her, but retired. 

" She had told me that she lodged at the Hotel 
de Tours : I went thither the next morning, and 
inquired what English persons lodged there : and 
found them to be Mr. and Mrs. Yates and their 
daughter. They, as well as myself, had left London 
on Wednesday, and had arrived in Paris on 
Sunday. . . . 

"I afterwards learnt that she took pleasure in 
relating this anecdote herself, saying that she had 
never received so good a lesson. This was in the 
year 1766, and I have been since assured that she 
greatly profited by it," 

238 



Neapolitan Manners 

"This incident," said the Doctor, "deserves a 
place in any collection of such meetings, which are 
ahvays productive of humour, and usually, in time, 
of profit. A better story is told of the light con- 
science of the Neapolitan Smart Set of that 
day : — 

"A young English nobleman was introduced at 
an assembly of one of the first ladies of Naples, by 
a Neapolitan gentleman. While he was there his 
snuff-box was stolen from him. The next day, being 
at another house, he saw a person taking snuff out 
of this very box. 

"He ran to his friend. 'There,' said he, 'that 
man in blue, with gold embroidery, is taking snuff 
out of the box which was stolen from me yesterday. 
Do you know him ? Is not he a sharper ? ' 

" 'Take care,' said the other, 'that is a man of 
the first quality.' 

" 'I do not care for his quality,' said the English- 
man ; ' I must have my snuff-box again ! I'll go and 
ask him for it.' 

" 'Pray,' said his friend, 'be quiet, and leave it to 
me to get back your box.' 

"Upon this assurance the Englishman went 
away, after inviting his friend to dine with him the 
next day. 

"He accordingly came; and, as he entered, 
'There,' said he, 'I have brought you your 
snuff-box.' 

239 



The Fourpenny Box 

" 'Well,' said the Englishman, 'how did you 
obtain it ? ' 

"'Why,' said the Neapolitan nobleman, 'I did 
not wish to make any noise about it, therefore I 
picked his pocket of it.' " 

"Very good," said B., "I like that. It pairs off 
with the story of Charles II and the pickpocket." 

"How much did your find cost ?" said A. 

"Fourpence a volume," said the Doctor; "no old 
book ought to be more." 



IX. — An Aid to Circulation 

It is from the past that the wise man draws his 
lessons; and I have pleasure in reminding the 
modern editor who is not satisfied with the number 
of his subscribers of a device invented by one of his 
ancient predecessors. There lies before me an odd 
volume of the Lady's Magazine; or, Entertaining 
Companion for the Fair Sex, appropriated solely to their 
Use and Amusement. The year is 1788, and it is 
stated roundly that the elegant frontispiece is 
"designed and engraved by the most capital artists 
in Europe." The magazine is much as one would 
expect it to be — a miscellany of descriptive articles, 
short stories (very mysterious or intense), artificial 
240 



The Young Ladies 

letters on manners and morals, letters to the editor 
on questions of etiquette, Eastern tales (then very 
popular), poetry, largely in the manner of Miss 
Seward, and a budget of news of the month. 
Each number also has a new pattern and a new 
song. 

All this is conventional ; the novelty — the trick 
to gain circulation — is the inclusion every month of 
"enigmatical questions," or lists of names of well- 
known residents in certain of the chief centres of 
England. Thus — "Enigmatical List of Young 
Ladies in Durham"; "Enigmatical List of Beauties 
in the Isle of Wight"; "Enigmatical List of Young 
Gentlemen of Scarborough"; "Enigmatical List of 
Bachelors in the Neighbourhood of Wolverley, 
Shropshire"; "Enigmatical List of the Names of 
some of the Officers of the Warwickshire Militia." 
Sometimes one finds the references almost too local, 
as in the "Enigmatical List of Young Ladies at 
Miss Cowperthwaite's Boarding-School, Ipswich"; 
but Ipswich boarding-schools seem to be favoured, 
for among the poetry I find this somewhat daring 
epigram : — 

"Addressed to Miss C s, at Miss Harrison's 

Boarding-School, Ipswich, on the author's first 
seeing her at church — 

" O C s, thou enchanting fair ! 

Hast play'd the robber's part ! 
Thou lately stole from heav'n a prayer, 
And likewise stole my heart." 

R 241 



The Fourpenny Box 

You note the peculiar charm of the thing — every 
one involved is unmarried, and there is not a little 
excitement in the guessing. Can you not see the 
Young Ladies of Durham poring over the list, and 
their delight on finding their own names, and their 
dismay at being left out ? And the beauties of the 
Isle of Wight — even worse to be left out of that 
galaxy ! 

And now let us see how it was done. Here is a 
good example : — 

"an enigmatical list of young ladies of 
maldon, essex 

"1. The wife of an ancient patriarch and a sweet 
flower. 

"2. Three-sevenths of a title, one-third of a term 
of affirmation, and four-ninths of the distance from 
east to west. 

"3. A Queen of England and a fish, changing a 
vowel. 

"4. The Christian name of an unfortunate con- 
cubine, two-fifths of an ancient British priest, two- 
fifths of a month, and two-fifths of a mistake. 

"5. A female Sovereign, three-sevenths of the 
High Priest of Rome, and one-sixth of a short 
sword. 

"6. Three-fifths of to make void, three-sixths of 
a man's Christian name, two-thirds of solid water, 
and one-fourth of a salute. 

"7. The mother of a prophet, a heap of corn, 
242 



Flattering Enigmas 

two-sixths of a pointed weapon, and one-fourth of 
the smallest quantity of any liquor. 

"8. Three-sixths of a well-known fish, two-fourths 
of a musical instrument, and a large and small 
stream. 

"9. The mother and daughter of a King, two- 
eighths of a northern constellation, the sharp part of 
an instrument, and one-third of an animal." 

I must confess that many of these are too difficult 
for me; I don't hold with such an atomic theory in 
puzzles. But there are doubtless readers with the 
special acrostic gift to whom these problems will 
present little or no difficulty. However, here is the 
official solution, printed two or three months later : — 

"1. Sarah May. 

*'2. Mary Long. 

3. Mary Hurring. 

4. Jane Draper. 

5. Elizabeth Pond. 

6. Ann Edwick. 

7. Hannah Rickard. 

8. Sally Seabrook. 

9. Mary Fledger." 

How many of these belles of Maldon in 1788 
have left any memory, one w^onders "^ Where are 
the neiges d'antan? Such lists accentuate (if that is 
possible) one's already too profound sense of transi- 
toriness. 

243 



The Fourpenny Box 



X. — A Phrase 

From far Japan comes this little Guide on Hakone, 
written in English as well as he can by C. J. 
Tsuchiya, and one of its phrases is so admirable 
that it should be put on record for inferior English 
scholars to imitate. Hakone, it should be premised, 
is a village of thermal springs situate on the top 
of Hakone Mountain. The mountain was once a 
volcano, "but lately its activity became quite 
absent." The natural disposition of the villagers of 
Hakone is "gentle and honest," and "their mutual 
friendship is so harmonious as that of a famil3%" 
The village is famous for its fresh air; "during the 
winter days the coldness robs up all pleasures from 
our hands, but at the summer months they are set free." 

But now for the shining phrase. Hakone was 
the scene, thirty-odd years ago, of a decisive battle 
which gave feudalism its death-blow. The two 
contestants were the Lord of Odawara-Han, of the 
Imperial Army, and the Lord of Boshti, who stood 
for feudalism. For a while the Lord Boshu con- 
quered, and he drove the enemy to the castle of 
Odawara, where they made themselves secure. He 
then advanced upon them, feeling certain of victory. 
But he had calculated badly, or, in Mr. C. J. 
Tsuchiya's delightful words, "he missed unexpect-. 
edly his cogitation," with the result that the foe 
rushed out suddenly and defeated him. 
244 



Italian without Tears 

Let us all take example from the Lord of Boshu 
and endeavour, when we have a cogitation, to hit 
the truth with it. 



XL — Saturninity 

Collections of funny stories are depressing things, 
but there is a little more to be said for them when 
they illustrate a nation's humour. Hence when 1 
was asked fourpence the other day for The Amusing 
Instructor, being a Collection of Fine Sayings, Smart 
Repartees, cOc, from the most approved Italian Authors, 
with an English Translation (London, 17^7), I decided 
to make the plunge, especially as I had just read 
in a review a sentence from Mr. Justin Huntlj^ 
McCarthy's novel The O'Flynn to the effect that 
"economise" was a dirty verb to use to a gentleman. 

According to the Preface, the book was designed 
for the use of those desirous of learning the Italian, 
the ordinary study of language being "very dry and 
unpleasant." For how, the compiler inquires, in 
effect, can anyone be bored who learns a new tongue 
from waggish anecdotes ? Well, that was before 
the days when railway reading had to be invented; 
he would not adopt such a method or such confidence 
now. Some of his stories, however, are not bad ; 

245 



The Fourpenny Box 

and the best have a certain family resemblance, an 
agreeable saturninity being at the bottom of them. 
I string together a few examples : — 

'* The True Method for Recollecting One's Past 
Sins. — A man confessing himself to a priest, among 
other sins of which he own'd himself guilty, said, 
that he had beat his wife a few hours before. The 
father confessor asking liim the occasion of it, he 
reply'd, that 'twas his usual custom, because his 
memory was so very weak, that he cou'd not re- 
member the sins he had committed ; but whenever 
he had drubb'd his wife, she reproach'd him with all 
the ill he had done in his life, and that thereby he 
was enabled with very little trouble to make a 
general confession." 

That is very typical of the humour of the old 
story-tellers. It has two certain elements of success 
in it — -a wife in her right place, and blows. 

We find the wife again in the next ; but it has an 
unexpected turn : — 

"A Man at Messina was accus'd for marrying five 
wives, when, being carried before the judge, he was 
ask'd, why he had married so many ; he answer'd, in 
order to meet with one good one if possible, and 
afterwards keep to her. Oh ! says the judge, if you 
cannot meet with a good one in this world, get you 
gone into the next and look for one there; upon 
which he order'd him to be put to death." 

The next example introduces avarice, which was 
246 



The Debtor's Bed 

also a very favourite topic with humorists, but seems 
now to have gone out. At least, one rarely meets 
the miser in modern fiction, but then neither does 
one meet anyone else with marked characteristics. 
They are having a close time. The pendulum, 
however, will swing back some day, preoccupation 
with the Seventh Commandment will cease, and the 
misers and other picturesque oddities will return. 
Here is the story : — 

"A Roman knight was found after his death to 
owe above five hundred thousand ducats, which 
circumstance he, when alive, had very industriously 
conceal" d. When they afterwards came to sell his 
possessions, and among other things his furniture, 
Augustus Caesar gave orders that they shou'd 
purchase his blankets for himself, saying, that he 
wouVl use them, in order to make him sleep, since 
he who had been so much in debt, had been able to 
sleep under them." 

The following story also follows familiar lines, but 
is very well done here : — 

"A man who was at the point of death left 
orders by his Will to his only son, that he should 
sell three faulcons of great value; ordering by the 
same, that by the sale of one he should pay his 
debts; that the money arising from the sale of the 
other should be employed for the good of his soul; 
and that the third should be sold for his own 
247 



The Fourpenny Box 

advantage. His father dying a few days after, one 
of the faulcons flew away, which he could not catch 
again, upon which he cry'd out; that goes for my 
father's soul." 

Even better I like this, w^hich contains an extraor- 
dinary amount of philosophy to the square inch : — 

"Trespade Mantuano fearing a threshing about 
from one of his enemies, stood upon his guard for 
upwards of a twelve-month; but happening to be 
w^atch'd one evening, his shoulders were handsomely 
drubb'd; at which he, far from discovering the least 
discontent, but, as if he had been eas'd of some 
burthen, crys out, thank heavens, that I have got 
rid of this ugly affair." 

There has been nothing quite English in anything 
I have quoted yet, but we find the cynical humour 
of the London streets in the following, which again 
introduces the wife, this time a Xantippe. All 
nations (and Londoniers are a separate nation) 
probably join hands in such sarcasms : — 

"A Perugian was bewailing himself, and crying 
bitterly, because his wife had hang'd herself on one 
of his fig-trees, Upon which a friend of his drawing 
near him, whispers him in the ear, 'How is it possible, 
my friend, that you can find tears to weep in so much 
prosperity ? Pray give me a slip of that fig-tree, 
because I have a mind to plant it in my garden, to 
see what my wife will do.' 

248 



The Height of Grimness 

But the next, the most tremendous cynicism of all, 
is unique. That is beyond London completely ; nor 
do I know of anything of the kind among French 
ana. If it is like anything, it is like some grim 
Hindoo jest : — 

''A Vine-dresser or husband-man, going to his 
master, told him the news of his wife's being 
brought to bed; and what has she got, replies the 
master, a girl I warrant you ? Better, Sir, replies 
the husband-man. Has she a boy then ? continues 
the master. Better still, replies the husband-man, 
for she's brought to bed of a dead female child." 



249 



The Voorst Prelude to Adventure ^^ ^:> 

LONDON is never so exciting as on May nights. 
The other evening I was forced into attending 
a debate : a thing I had not done for years. Never 
mind what the subject was, but one speaker after 
another got up — a few in reply to the last speaker, 
but most merely to deliver some remarks prepared 
even earlier (if possible) than the last speaker had 
prepared his. And so it went on, and then there 
was a show of hands, something was carried, some- 
thing was lost; and I found myself under the May 
stars with the sweetness of the May night all 
about me. 

It was not very late; I was in no hurry to go to 
bed ; and the evening's rhetoric, so futile, when all 
is said, because only academic and leading no whither, 
had aroused in me a mood of revolt. To think that 
we should have been sitting there arguing in a stuffy 
room, when we might have been high on Hampstead 
Heath; or in the garden of the Spaniards; or 
smelling the lilacs of Holland Walk; or, at ease, on 
the crazy green balcony of the Angel at Rotherhithe, 
250 



Books 

watching the river lights and the stealthy nocturnal 
shipping. Or we might have been merely in 
liondon's streets under the May stars. 

It infuriated me. "I have lost an evening," I 
said, "and a May evening at that; and life is so 
devilish short." And so saying I pulled myself 
together and added, "But no matter — here you are, 
with a latchkey and an open mind : have an adven- 
ture!" 

It was then about a quarter-past eleven. At one 
o'clock I was nearing home, weary and disheartened, 
asking myself the question, "Who are the people 
who have adventures.^" and answering it, "Those 
who cannot appreciate them." And then I asked, 
"How is it that I, spoiling for an adventure, have 
had none?" and the answer was, "For two reasons 
— one, your attitude of receptivity^ : it is the un- 
expected that happens ; and, two, only an ass would 
ever expect an adventure." And then I asked, 
"I'his being so, why on earth did I ever prepare the 
way for an adventure at all ? Why didn't I know that 
they didn't occur .^ " And the answer was, "Books." 

The answer was, "Books." 

It is books that do the mischief. Without books 
we should know life for the humdrum thing and 
imposture it is, even in London on a May night. 
And even as it is, we know it ; but books make us 
forget what we know. Books are in our blood. No 
one who begins bookishly ever becomes quite free 
again. There they are, all the time, in the back- 
251 



The Worst Prelude to Adventure 

ground, dominating conduct and providing standards, 
ideals, limitations, but above all illusions and dis- 
appointments. For the books that one reads in 
the impressionable years, and therefore absorbs and 
remembers, are always so much better and more 
exciting than life. 

Ballantyne, for example, who came first — what 
chances his boys had that were never ours ! Coral 
islands to be cast away upon ; fur-trading ; gorilla- 
hunting — you see the mischief of it all ! Then 
Haggard, Stevenson, Defoe, Scott, Dickens. These 
are the corrupters of youth. One comes away from 
them for ever expecting something, where one 
might, without them, have been merely acquiescent 
and at peace. For they all heighten; they all 
arrange life their own way and sauce it. Dickens 
comes nearest to the life that one knows : one 
continually meets characters with a vague Dickensian 
flavour ; but the breath of genius is not in them. 
They are the shells only : the great, comic, humane, 
living, unreal fairy-land spirit has not animated 
them. It never can : it began with Dickens and 
passed with him. Disappointment again ! 

But on my way home that night it was Stevenson 
whom I felt to be the first of the traitors : Stevenson, 
who brought Bagdad to London (the low trick !), 
and, since Bagdad is not really London, spoiled 
life for thousands of us. How often have I invented 
New Arabian Nights for myself ! I suppose all that 
ever tasted that seductive poison liave done so. 
252 



Vain Dreams 

The taxi chauffeur who invites one to ride free to 
the mysterious house. The anonymous, agonized 
gentleman who stops me in the street imploring me 
to witness his will or perform some other service, to 
be followed not long after by the receipt of the 
lawyer's letter (always a lawyer's letter !) that carries 
the news of fortune. The note dropped from the 
barred upper window behind which the beautiful 
girl is incarcerated. The veiled lady with the blood- 
hound. . . . 

On a May night of stars in London how one can 
play with, elaborate, and perfect such motifs. In 
the adventure of the agonized gentleman who 
requires a signature, for example, he stands at the 
gate in the small hours, counting the infrequent 
passers-by, his object being to invite the seventh. 
Perhaps it is not himself for whom he is acting, but 
for some strange sinister employer, bed-ridden, at 
death's door, upstairs. An old woman, maybe, 
masterful, cunning, but helpless, who cannot spare 
this factotum, but must have a life-and-death 
message carried at once. It is I who carry it. 
Perhaps it is written ; perhaps it is verbal ; curious 
cryptic words which, when I say them to the person 
they are intended for, cause him to blanch and quail. 
Every one has these dreams of romantic interludes in 
the drab monotony of city -life; but they come to 
nothing. Adventures, such as they are, fall only to 
those who have forgotten the story-writers or never 
knew them. 

253 



The Worst Prelude to Adventure 

As to how similar the ideas of exceedingly dis- 
similar persons can be, even when they are deliber- 
ately fantastic, I have an instance only too pat. It 
has long been a favourite whim of mine that a 
mirror should be invented capable of retaining every 
reflection it had ever recorded and givmg them 
back when desired. A little while ago I picked 
up Passages from the American Note-Books of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and found the same idea 
jotted down for use one day in a romance. This 
book, by the wa3% is a mine of suggestions for the 
story- writers, for Hawthorne had more thoughts in 
a day than he could use in a year ; and many of 
them are here. 

And so, turning the key, I bade farewell to the 
May stars, and did one of the most adventurous 
things left to us — I went to bed. For no one can 
lay a hand on our dreams. All the authors of the 
world cannot spoil those. 



254 



Note ^^::> <:::^ <::i^ <:::> ^^::> ^;^ 

THE essays that make up this book have for the 
most part already appeared in various periodi- 
cals — chiefly in Punch, the Pall Mall Gazette, and 
the Guardian. But few of them are printed here 
exactly as they were written, and several have many 
changes. 

E. V. L. 



255 



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Three Hundred Games and Pastimes 

Or, What Shall We Do Now ? A book of suggestions for the 
employment of young hands and minds, directions f -r playing many 
children's games, etc. Decorated cloth, x + 3g2 pages, $ 2.00 net 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Aveuue New York 



The Gentlest Art 

A Choke of Letters by Entertaining Hands 

Edited by E. V. LUCAS 

An anthology of letter-writing so human, interesting, and amusing 
from first to last, as almost to inspire one to attempt the restoration 
of the lost art. 

"There is hardly a letter among them all that one would have left 
out, and the book is of such pleasant size and appearance, that one 
would not have it added to, either." — The New York Times. 
" Letters of news and of gossip, of polite nonsense, of humor and 
pathos, of friendship, of quiet reflection, stately letters in the grand 
manner, and naive letters by obscure and ignorant folk." 

Cloth, $^'^J net 



The Friendly Craft 

Edited hv ELIZABETH D. HANSCOM 

In this volume the author has done for American letters what Mr. 
Lucas did for English in "The Gentlest Art." 

"... An unusual anthology. A collection of American letters, some 
of them written in the Colonial period and some of them yesterday; 
all of them particularly human; many of them charmingly easy and 
conversational, as pleasant, bookish friends talk in a fortunate hour. 
The editor of this collection has an unerring taste for literary quality, 
and a sense of humor which shows itself in prankish headHnes. . . . 
It is a great favor to the public to bring together in just this informal 
way the delightful letters of our two centuries of history." — Ike 
Independent. 

"There should be a copy of this delightful book in the collection of 
every lover of that which is choice in literature." — The A'ew York 
Times. 

Cloth, $1.2^ net 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



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